To me, nothing makes food taste better than when it has the added rich taste of butter. Butter may not be a really long term food storage item, unless you buy the canned butter, but it can be frozen for up to one year with out going rancid. I keep several sticks of butter in my freezer and rotate them to keep them good. I don’t keep butter in the refrigerator except for a what I am going to use in the next 2-4 weeks because butter only lasts about 4 months in the fridge. I always buy salted butter because, not only do I like the taste, it keeps longer than non-salted butter.
I keep enough butter in my freezer to last about 10 months of my normal use. Just calculate how much butter you use in a month and times it by 10 and you will have your 10 month supply goal. I didn’t just buy my 10 month supply of butter at once, I built up my butter supply over a few months. Each time I buy butter for the month I bought twice as much as I needed for that month; I did this until I had an 10 month supply, if you follow this method you will have 10 months worth in 5 months. I now just buy enough butter to replace what I used that month so I always have at least a 9-10 month supply of butter on hand.
Butter is not the cheapest item you get for your food storage but it is something you probably already use on a regular basis in your kitchen so I would highly recommend storing it. I have seen canned butter for sale before that stays good for a really long time but it is usually expensive. My in-laws bought some last year and it tasted really good, just like regular butter I use.
There are so many ways that we use butter in the kitchen: sauteing, frying, in sauces, spreading over food & vegetables, flavoring popcorn, creaming, and on and on… Since I store plenty of whole grains for grinding into flour, it is a good idea to store butter for making baked goods that taste great and spreading on my rolls or bread. We also use butter quite a bit with pasta sauce. Butter is something that our family would rather not due with out.