Comparative Quality Profiling of Butter and Ghee Produced by Different Manufacturers in Bangladesh

Abstract

Milk fat products, notably butter and ghee, are widely used because of their rich flavor, nutritional properties, and cultural significance. However, they have not been subjected to sufficiently rigorous, brand-level chemical evaluation, which is necessary to assess nutritional quality, purity, shelf life, and the risk of adulteration. This study evaluated the quality of commercial butter and ghee products from various Bangladeshi manufacturers by measuring key fat-quality parameters. Five samples of butter and six samples of ghee commercially available in the market were analyzed for acid value, peroxide value, iodine value, saponification value, Reichert-Meissl (RM) value, Polenske value, and Kirschner value using standardized Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC) International and Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) protocols. All measurements were performed in triplicate. Statistical significance was evaluated by a one-way ANOVA (P ≤ 0.05) using a Completely Randomized Design, and mean variation was ascertained using the Least Significant Difference (LSD) test at a 5% level of significance. The findings showed that most of the commercial dairy lipid brands complied with the national standards. For both butter and ghee, the acid value ranged from 0.46 to 0.75, peroxide value from 0.63 to 0.82, iodine value from 28.35 to 35.86, saponification value from 227.91 to 231.63, RM value from 25.36 to 28.28, Polenske value from 0.64 to 0.87, and Kirschner value from 16.917 to 21.43. Based on a multi-parametric quality index integrating both freshness and purity, Butter-3 was identified as the best choice among commercial butter samples, and Ghee-4 ranked the highest among commercial ghee samples. In conclusion, this study provides a biochemically sound comparison of commercially packaged dairy fats to guide consumers and support regulatory compliance in Bangladesh.