The New York State Fair’s most mouth-watering tradition is back, and this year’s butter sculpture is a showstopper. The American Dairy Association North East unveiled the 2025 creation Tuesday in Syracuse, tipping the scales at 800 pounds.
That’s enough butter to cover 76,800 pancakes, make 3,200 sticks, or fill more than 72,000 single-serve packets. At the average U.S. butter consumption rate of 6.5 pounds per person per year, it would take one person more than 123 years to finish it. Producing that much butter requires 1,972 gallons of milk — a full day’s work for 226 cows, or about 7.4 months for just one.
Sculptors Jim Victor and Marie Pelton have been behind the Fair’s annual buttery centerpiece since 2003, continuing a tradition that began in 1969. Over the decades, designs have celebrated everything from “Cow Jumping Over the Moon” and carousel rides to Olympic dreams and New York’s dairy farmers. Butter sculpting itself dates back to 19th-century agricultural fairs in North America and even further to Tibetan Buddhist celebrations, where yak butter is shaped into intricate symbols.
Once the Fair wraps up, the butter won’t go to waste. It will be taken to Noblehurst Farms in Livingston County, where it will be added to a methane digester that turns food waste and manure into energy — enough to power a home for three days…