Paul Polman, chief executive officer of Unilever, the world's biggest producer of margarine spreads, has leveled some harsh criticisms against butter over the years. In 2010 he even said it "kills." But after years of watching sales of the company's margarines lose ground to the fat-filled dairy ingredient, Unilever managers recently began doing the unthinkable: adding butter to some of their margarines. The food giant in September started blending butter into its Rama, Germany's biggest spread brand, and into another of its lines in Finland. While Polman wouldn't share specifics during the company's fourth-quarter investor call on Jan. 21, he said the butter-infused spreads have "gotten off to a very good start."
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