Now that the New York State Fair is over, what happens to the 800-pound butter sculpture that was on display?
It isn't one, gigantic, solid slab of butter. It was sculpted around a hollow, wood frame.
"So, when it's all said and done," said Chris Noble, watching the deconstruction of the sculpture Tuesday morning at the State Fairgrounds, "it looks like a bit of a butter zombie, because all you have left is the frame and the plywood behind it."
It's what happens next to the butter that Noble is most concerned about. He is a co-owner of Noblehurst Farms in Pavilion, Genesee County. That's where the remnants of the massive butter sculpture will be fed into a biodigester, a tank that digests organic material organically.
The butter, along with food scraps from local supermarkets and schools, as well as animal waste from the farm, will be used to create biogas and ultimately, electricity.
"I think more and more consumers want to know that their food is being produced in a sustainable way," said Noble, "and so telling the story of what we're doing today helps consumers understand more of what farmers are doing and so they have more trust in what we're doing on a day-to-day basis."
Any residual butter will be used to make fertilizer for the farm's crops. Noble said this year's butter sculpture was produced by milk from about 200 cows. The two-sided, rotating sculpture featured a grandfather and child dunking cookies into milk and a young couple sharing a milkshake.
