In recent years, our No-Till Farmer editors have shared numerous conversations with no-tillers interested in finding new ways to expand farm income past traditional cash crop, milk and meat production.

While we’ve seen many opportunities for developing a direct-to-consumer business, many growers maintain it seems like too much work.

Yet there are numerous no-tillers already making direct sales to consumers work. There are examples of no-tillers marketing beef, pork, lamb, dairy products, special-trait cash crops, no-till organics, pumpkin patches, corn maizes and more directly to consumers.

As an example of a highly successful direct-to-consumer project, let me share how two Wisconsin sisters developed a specialty market for a line of specialty butters produced with home-grown Gurnsey milk.

Plus, it’s a special pleasure to share their success story as one of the sisters, Julie Orchard, who with her husband Ed Bacon, have no-tilled 800 acres for more than 20 years and milk 120 cows at Columbus, Wis.

As some long-time No-Till Farmer subscribers may recall, Julie was one of our No-Till Farmer editors in the 1990s. So she got a real in-depth education about the many benefits of no-till as a member of our staff.

Founding Royal Guernsey Creamery, Julie and sister Jen offer specialty butter products. The lineup includes salted butter, signature butter, flavored butter, unsalted butter, cinnamon butter, chalot & chive butter along with gift boxes of assorted butters. Their product lineup also includes butter crocks and butter totes. Heck, they even offer butter earrings if you’re looking for a unique product for the females in your life!

Guernsey vs. Holstein Debate

Two robotic milking systems are used at Gurn-Z Meadow Farm where Julie and husband Ed Bacon, milk 120 Holsteins and registered Guernseys and no-till 800 acres. The herd is about 40% Guernsey and 60% Holstein. Guernseys are a family tradition for the Orchards, dating back to 1943 when Jen and Julie’s grandfather began milking Guernseys.

Gurn-Z Meadow Farm actually co-resides with Bacon’s Rolling Acres. This farming combination is the result of their marriage that combined Julie’s love for Guernseys with Ed’s passion for Holsteins.

How the Butter Business Started

In 2016, the farm participated in an American Guernsey Association research project on milk quality. After interviewing people making cheese, ice cream and other products with Guernsey milk and talking with experts at the Center for Dairy Research and the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, the sisters were interested in doing something on their own.  

They recognized that their off-the-farm experiences would prove valuable in running a value-added butter business. Jen had experience in shipping and logistics, while Julie brought marketing knowledge to the table.

The sisters realized they had the right milk to make beautiful European-old-style butter. Guernsey milk has a high fat content and high amounts of beta carotene or Vitamin A that leads to a beautiful, golden color butter. 

Deciding to take a shot at making butter, Jen left a 15-year career in the biotech industry to create Royal Guernsey Creamery with her sister. She soon became a licensed cheesemaker, the fastest route to becoming a licensed butter maker.   

 To help fund the new butter-making business, they secured grant money from the Dairy Business Innovation Alliance.

Old European-Style Butter Makers

The artisan butter makers are making butter the old-fashioned way from their own  Guernsey cows’ milk. Bartch churning is used to provide fuller flavor and European-style cream tempering. This leads to a  gentler and more mouthfeel to the butter.

Milk collected on the farm is churned into butter within 48 hours. The cream first goes through a tempering of 18-20 hours before butter production can begin. Manufactured by the sisters at an area dairy plant, each batch is turned into 400-500 pounds of butter. 

Butter produced in Wisconsin must contain 80% fat while the European-style butter the sisters make contains at least 82% fat. Since no water is added, this leads to a butter that is solid, creamy and so fresh that consumers can literally taste the sweetness of the cream, says Jen.

Not wishing to package their specialized butter in a plastic tub, they settled on using a gold foil wrapping. The gold foil improves the taste, protects the integrity and easily handles freezing and thawing.

Besides selling directly to consumers via mail-order, additional distribution is through grocery stores, area farmer’s markets, pickup at their on-farm store. They also take advantage of other opportunities, such as pairing butter sales with sweet corn at a neighbor’s vegetable stand. 

Here’s the latest success story for the Royal Guernsey Creamery.

The Butters that Took World-Best Honors for These Wisconsin No-Tillers

Four specialty butters entered, four placings in the top five in the world for 2026 by these Wisconsin no-tillers.
By Julie Orchard

I still remember exactly where I was standing. In the barn. Middle of chores. Nothing unusual about the evening at all. Just another night on our dairy farm. My phone rang, and it was my sister Jen.

She had spent the day volunteering as part of the “B-Team” with the judges at the World Championship Cheese Contest—helping behind the scenes, learning from the best, watching how each product is carefully scored down from a perfect 100.

By that evening, she was back home, checking the results online. They post them all at once, but no one knows when they’ll go up. So she kept refreshing the page, waiting to see if they were in.

She checked the Flavored Butter class first, and we figured that class had our strongest contenders.

Signature butter—second place.

I don’t remember exactly what I said back. I just stood there, trying to take it in.

No-tilling for more than 20 years, the farm’s typical rotation includes wheat, corn, soybeans and 3 years of alfalfa.

One of the largest dairy competitions in the world — 3,375 entries, from 25 countries, each one judged and scored with incredible precision. And somehow, our butter — the one we make one batch at a time — was at the top. 

There were tears that night. Because this is something you work toward… but never quite let yourself believe will happen.

When we started this creamery, we had one goal: to take the milk from our own cows and turn it into something truly special.

We were told it wouldn’t work. One person even told us we’d be better off growing nut trees. Others said we’d never produce enough volume to make it work.

We started anyway. What I didn’t fully understand then was what it would actually cost.

Produced with award-winning craftsmanship, Royal Guernsey Creamery butter is slow-churned using fresh cream from the farm’s Guernsey cows. The resulting high-quality cream yields butter with the best flavor, color and nutritional profile. The hands of the sisters are found in every step of the butter-making process from growing grass the cows eat to caring for the cows and churning the milk into specialized butters.

I was running a farm. I had a toddler. I was a wife. And I was trying to build something from scratch that everyone around us said couldn’t be done.

In the winter, when it was subzero outside, I’d do chores in the dark before sunrise, drive to the creamery, and stand on concrete all day until 10:30 p.m.—then go home and do chores again. Drop dead tired, boots still on, wondering how I was going to get up and do it again in a few hours.

Those were the days I asked myself why. Especially when we weren’t making enough to pay ourselves.

I don’t tell you this for sympathy. I tell you because those days are what this butter is made of just as much as the cream is. To see that recognized on a world stage is something we’ll never forget.

And then we stepped back and looked at the full results.

Behind the scenes at the World Championship Cheese Contest.

Four of the butters we entered placed in the top five at the World Championship Cheese Contest in their respective classes.

• Salted Butter — 1st and Best in Class Salted Butter
• Signature Butter — 2nd in Flavored Butter
• Coffee Butter — 4th in Flavored Butter
• Unsalted Butter — 5th in Unsalted Butter

All at the world level. Our first time entering.

The Butterettes, Julie & Jen

Two years ago, I remember asking Jen if we should try this contest. She said we might not be ready for that stage yet.

She might have been right at the time. But we’re sure glad we tried. And we truly wouldn’t be here without you. None of those mornings would have been worth it without you on the other end of them.