One Canterbury school has turned to selling blocks of butter, instead of cookies or chocolate for their fundraisers.
Leithfield School – Te Kura o Kōwai, is a Year 1-8 school that’s about 40km north of Christchurch, and Conductive Education Canterbury, a special education school, have been asking their communities to buy 250 gram blocks of the kitchen staple.
Leithfield is selling a variety of Westgold butter products – salted, unsalted at $4 for a 250g block.
The kura is also selling a box of 40 packets for $160. There is a minimum purchase of $16, the school’s online ordering platform said.
Leithfield School principal Rob Cavanagh said the response to the fundraiser from the school community had been “pretty overwhelming, to be fair”.
He said the school’s fundraising team was a little bit surprised by the response to the new initiative as well.
“It sounded like a good way of getting people to better meet their needs and also make a little bit of money for the school at the same time.”
The spread in the butter market
Leithfield School’s fundraising butter is supplied by Hokitika-based Westland Milk Products.
A 500g block of Anchor butter (which is twice the size of the school fundraiser packs) cost $11 at Woolworths while a budget home brand block was selling for $8.49 on Tuesday.
Data from Stats NZ showed butter prices increased 63.6% in the 12 months to March 2025.
Westland said on its website it had about 400 farmer suppliers, who were guaranteed to be paid at least the same for their milk as Fonterra paid its farmers. The company is owned by Yili, described as the largest dairy producer in China and Asia.
Butter at sold under Costco’s very popular private label brand Kirkland Signature that was selling at $9.99 a kilo also comes from Westland Milk Products.
Cavanagh said the school has had lots of enquiries through their office for the butter and it’s great that people are willing to support the school.
“It probably also reflects how popular butter is and how many people are keen to get their hands on good quality butter. From my understanding, there are levels to butter, in terms of the quality, and this Westgold butter is, is one that’s certainly very popular.”
One dollar from every small sized block of butter sold goes to the school to reduce some of those start of the year costs for families, Cavanagh said.
The fundraising team’s efforts subsidized school stationary costs and classroom consumables, such as pencils, pens, and whiteboard markers “that just seem to be, eaten up at a ridiculously, quick rate in classrooms”.
“We’re able to bring those costs down for families,” he said.
Other beneficiaries included senior students going on school camps and student leadership experiences and new kapa haka uniforms for the school’s senior group.
Money from donations from parents comes in a significant shortfall every year from the school of 125 students and that needs to be made up through the school’s operational funding, Cavanagh said.
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