Farmstead Creameries on the rise in Wisconsin
According to the Wisconsin State Journal, a growing number of farmers in the state are opening on-site shops and creameries:
[Al] Bekkum, who owns and operates Nordic Creamery, just opened a farmstead butter plant and retail store on the farm that has been in his wife’s family for almost a century. Other farm families in the state make cheese, ice cream, milk or even yogurt with milk from their own animals. But Bekkum’s is the state’s first on-farm creamery that makes butter... [including] a summer butter, made from the milk of cows grazing on summer grasses, and flavored butters such as maple syrup, cinnamon sugar, and garlic and basil. Still to come are other seasonal butters, cultured butters, whey butters and goat butters.
“These new creameries, the people who are doing them are innovators and inventors. They’re making wonderful dairy products that sometimes prompt the rest of the dairy industry to be more innovative and creative and responsive to what consumers want.”
