According to the latest data from the Czech Statistical Office, 1kg of butter cost 275 Czech koruna (€11) in October, which is an increase of 11% since September and 34% since last year.
But as prices continue to rise, so do tensions with politicians taking to social media to place blame.
On Thursday last week, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, blamed the high price of butter on opposition leader Andrej Babiš, who is the owner of food company Agrofert.
“The market should sort it out. Unfortunately, the market is not there. The market is dominated by three powerful players, including Mr. Babiš’s Agrofert and his friends, and they are simply oligopolies,” Fiala told the Czech newspaper Blesk.
Babiš hit back on the X platform, calling him a “fool.”
“The Prime Minister is again babbling and lying about the price of butter ... If he looked up that 60 percent of butter is imported into the Czech Republic and the biggest domestic producer is Madeta, he wouldn’t look like a fool now,” Babiš fumed.
The Czech Office for the Protection of Competition has said that the Czech food market has “an oligopolistic character” and it announced that it will investigate the high prices of butter.
But fed-up Czechs have now decided to take the matter into their own hands by making homemade butter.
For some this means buying expiring whipped cream at a discount and turning it into butter.
One woman who did this said she saved around 90 korunas (€0.40).
The woman called Aneta told Blesk that after putting the whipped cream into a processor to separate the whey, she then “put the resulting butter in cold water with ice and washed it thoroughly so that it wouldn't curdle.”
She added: “In the end, six whipped creams made 566 grams of butter for a total of 46 korunas.”
But others have been left fuming over the high costs with another woman telling the newspaper: “Thanks to the crazy price we make our own butter. What's next? Shall we make flour?”
According to officials, the increase in butter costs and shortages across Europe are due to outbreaks of bluetongue disease in cattle and sheep, as well as drought, causing the global milk supply to decline.
In some countries like Russia widespread butter thefts have been reported due to the shortage.
