Wisconsin is regarded as “America's Dairyland,” with the slogan painted proudly on license plates for decades, it's one of the leading dairy producers in the country. There are many large producers there and they have an obvious interest in securing their market share, which is done with the help of various licensing rules and restrictions that work to keep competition out.

Among those rules are stipulations that every batch of butter that's being sold must be graded by a state-licensed butter grader.

It must be tested only by approved “industry experts” before it is given a grade, otherwise it's unlawful for it to enter the market. The state admits that the butter grades are not for health concerns or nutrition priorities, but they're an attempt to inform customers about the product. But most consumers might not understand what the butter grades mean, rendering the entire grading scheme rather pointless, other than it works well to help keep the competition out of the market.

One butter producer from Ohio, Minerva Dairy, has launched a lawsuit that is seeking to challenge the butter grading rules in Wisconsin, they've teamed up with the Pacific Legal Foundation to see the effort through. They haven't had much luck yet with a district court or Seventh Circuit court and they're now seeking to have the Supreme Court take on the case.

Why? Because they are arguing that the butter grading rules violate Constitutional rights, specifically the 14th Amendment rights to due process and equal protection of law. They argue that the butter grading law is violating the rights of individuals to participate in the Wisconsin butter market which violates their economic liberty. We should find out before summer if the Supreme Court is going to take the case.

One of the most popular butter brands in the world had been banned from entering the Wisconsin market because they didn't have the proper grading on their label. For anyone caught selling Kerrygold butter, they could've been fined hundreds of dollars for it.

The product is so popular that many distributors sought to legally challenge the restriction and eventually Kerrygold made its way back onto the shelves.

In that circumstance as well, it fueled a movement to seek to challenge the Constitutionality of the butter grading restrictions.

The silly taste-testing rules meant that many people were driving to neighboring states to find the butter that they needed and then bringing it back. It might be a difficult notion to accept, but people themselves are capable of assessing the quality of a product to suit their own needs, without any help or infringement from the government.

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