What Happens To The Butter Cow After The Illinois State Fair?

The iconic butter cow has been a part of the Illinois State Fair since 1929. The tradition continues in 2022 with a 500-pound sculpture of a cow made out of butter. This is the usual weight although in 2017 it weighed an astounding 800 pounds. What kind of butter is it, you may be wondering? It's unsalted.

Here is one of the butter cows from past years at the Illinois State Fair.

The 2022 butter cow is on display August 11-21, 2022, inside the 119-year-old Dairy Building at the fair. This year's sculptor is Sarah Pratt and the theme is "Grow With Us," according to KTVI-TV. She's been the queen sculptor since 2016.

Sarah Pratt’s creation brings together the interaction between the farmer, the land, and the animal.

Here's a peak of the cow, which can be spotted rotating in a refrigerated display case. If you see it in person try to find all 13 hearts on it, representing the ingredients in milk.

If you're thirsty to see this monstrous butter cow rotating in real time there is a live camera you can watch in real-time. Check it out here.

What happens to the butter cow at the end of the Illinois State Fair?

It's an interesting question that randomly popped into my head when I was watching the big reveal online. I'm not sure where the question came from but if I'm curious about it that means other people are too. So what happens when the fair is done? It gets cream-ated. (Bad joke, I know.)

But seriously, it is softened and stored in buckets to be used again next year, according to Gregory Harutunian for Chronicle Media.

It’s recycled for next year, and kept in the Decatur Prairie Farms’ Ice Cream plant, in their cooler.

Seems logical, 500+ pounds of butter can't just be thrown out. What a waste that would be.