Is it Cheaper to Make or Buy Apple Butter?
I remember as a kid, that my parents always bought a few jars of apple butter at an Amish store whenever we went on vacation to the Georgia Mountains. We lived in Florida at the time and no store near us sold it.
Now thankfully you can buy apple butter at almost any grocery store around the country. This made me wonder if making it myself would actually be cheaper than buying it. So, let’s find out!
How much does homemade apple butter cost?
I am a huge fan of anything simple and easy, so I was very relieved when I came across this recipe to make Apple Butter in a crockpot! Now let’s breakdown the cost of how much a batch would be.
| Homemade Apple Butter Ingredients | Total Out of Pocket Cost | Cost for the Recipe |
| 6 1/2 pounds of apples | 6.5 lbs Red Delicious Apples @ $1.37 a lb= $8.91 | $8.91 |
| 1/2 cup of white sugar | Great Value 4lb bag= $3.12 | $0.16 |
| 1/2 cup of brown sugar | Great Value 2lb bag= $1.97 | $0.21 |
| 1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon | Great Value 2.5oz jar= $1.18 | $0.08 |
| 1/4 tsp of salt | Great Value 26oz container= $0.72 | $0.01 |
| 1 tbsp Vanilla Extract | Great Value 1oz jar= $4.12 | $2.06 |
| Total Cost: $20.02 | Cost for Recipe: $11.43 |
My local Walmart is the cheapest for most groceries, so I have priced out the ingredients there. Depending on where you shop your prices may vary. I chose the Red Delicious apples because they were the cheapest per pound.
The total cost to make one batch of Apple Butter would be $20.02 out of pocket, but really the cost for the recipe is $11.43.
That sounds like a lot for a jar of Apple Butter but really this recipe makes about 2.5 pints which is about 40 ounces. That means our Apple Butter costs $0.28 per ounce.
One of the ways we could lower the cost of our Apple Butter is by using Imitation Vanilla Flavor since it costs significantly less than the real stuff. If we had used Imitation Vanilla Flavor our total cost would have been $9.46 or $0.23 per ounce.
How much does apple butter cost at the grocery store?
Now let’s head to a couple of different grocery stores and check out the prices of Apple Butter! In order to compare apples to apples (pun intended) we will break down the cost of the store bought apple butter into price per ounce, since there is no standard sizing.
| Store Bought Apple Butter & Size Container | Store & Price | Cost per Ounce |
| Musselman’s, 28oz jar | Wegman’s, $5.19 | $0.19 |
| Musselman’s, 28oz jar | Walmart, $3.87 | $0.14 |
| Bowl & Basket, 28oz jar | Shop Rite, $4.87 | $0.17 |
| Stop & Shop, 17oz jar | Stop & Shop, $3.79 | $0.22 |
| The Backyard Food Company, 8.5oz jar | The Fresh Market, $5.99 | $0.70 |
| White House, 28oz jar | Publix, $5.15 | $0.18 |
| Musselman’s, 17oz jar | Winn-Dixie, $3.89 | $0.23 |
| Best Choice, 28oz jar | Rouses Market, $3.82 | $0.14 |
| Kroger, 28oz jar | King Soopers, $4.99 | $0.18 |
| Signature Selects, 28oz jar | Safeway, $4.69 | $0.17 |
| Musselman’s, 28oz jar | Meijer, $4.79 | $0.17 |
| Dickinson’s, 9oz jar | Lucky’s Market, $3.29 | $0.37 |
| Average Cost Per Oz: | $0.24 |
We found 12 different stores that sold Apple Butter, and the cheapest option was Walmart for a cost of $0.14 per ounce. The highest price was $0.70 per ounce at The Fresh Market.
Overall, the average store-bought cost came out to be $0.24 per ounce. This means compared to the homemade cost of $0.28 per ounce, it is cheaper to buy Apple Butter than make it.
*If we compared it to the batch that used imitation vanilla flavor, it comes out pretty close with buying $0.24 per oz and homemade being $0.23 per oz.
Is homemade apple butter worth it?
If we are basing “worth it” on if Apple Butter is cheaper to make than no it is not worth it. Now if we could get this cost lowered by picking up apples for super cheap, then the cost would go down.
I regularly see apples on markdown cart in the produce section so if the price was right, it may be worth it. Another option would be if someone gave you a ton of apples for free, and the then cost would be very little to make your own.
We still have to consider other factors when making our own apple butter. This recipe made a batch of 40 oz which is a lot! I really like apple butter but I doubt that my family is going to eat that much right away.
The recipe does offer a suggestion to only keep a small amount in your fridge and to freeze the rest in 1 cup portions. Without freezing the Apple Butter, I am sure that the whole batch would go bad, before we could consume it all which will definitely not save us any money if we have to throw it out.
We could always just make a smaller batch instead of starting with 6.5 pounds of apples, we could just use up any apples we had left that were starting to get soft. This would be a great way to utilize the apples before they went bad, and then our main cost would just be the sugars, cinnamon, salt, and vanilla.
I am sure that homemade apple butter tastes better than store bought, that has less perservatives and added sugar, but I am not sure I am ready to start making it at home just yet. (Unless I am using up old apples.)
Instead, I will just keep an eye out for Apple Butter on sale and buy when it is the cheapest price.
Hmmmm, Apple Butter on a freshly baked biscuit or a toasted bagel is just the best breakfast especially in fall time when the weather turns cool!
