That’s different

When E and I were in the grocery store I was surprised to learn that this short box of butter was actually a pound. All the butter was in flat packages, not the cube-shaped packages we have at home. Hmmm. I Googled it and found an interesting history on the Midwest Farm Report page (comparison picture from Wikipedia):

Due to historical differences in butter printers (machines that cut and package butter), these sticks are commonly produced in two different shapes:

The dominant shape east of the Rocky Mountains is the Elgin, or Eastern-pack shape, named for a dairy in Elgin, Illinois. The sticks are 4.8 inches long and 1.3 inches wide and are typically sold stacked two by two in elongated cube-shaped boxes.

West of the Rocky Mountains, butter printers standardized on a different shape that is now referred to as the Western-pack shape. These butter sticks are 3.1 inches long and 1.5 inches wide and are usually sold with four sticks packed side-by-side in a flat, rectangular box.

Both sticks contain the same amount of butter, although most butter dishes are designed for Elgin-style butter sticks.