Dear Quality Butter Lovers and Kriemhild Supporters,
​
The transition from using a co-packer to building and operating our own processing facility has been in progress since 2010, when Kriemhild Dairy Farms was first conceived. For nearly ten years we have been allowed a unique opportunity with our co-packer, packaging our own products in their facility. Over this time we have gained invaluable experience learning how to effectively and safely package our products, maintain our equipment, manage our ever increasing inventory, and lead a small staff to pump out the best butter on the East Coast. However, our goal was always to build our own small facility next to our main grass-fed milk producer, Red Gate Farm, in Hamilton, NY. This past summer, we encountered one of the biggest challenges our company has faced to date. Our co-packing partner was experiencing difficulties procuring the cream they needed to maintain their small business in the struggling milk market, so they began storing our specialty grass-fed cream with other local cream. Without our cream segregated, it hasn’t been possible to produce our 100% grass-fed Meadow Butter. This meant that during the period that is usually our most profitable season, we were suddenly unable to produce our most profitable product.

In its place we used the combined cream to make our Bakers’ Butter. Bakers’ Butter is premium quality sweet cream butter that is slow churned in small batches and has an 85% plus butter fat content. The high quality milk for the cream comes from family farms in central New York that have all pledged to be rBST free. While Bakers’ Butter is a quality product, produced in the same manner, it is no substitute for Meadow Butter when it comes to sales. 

The inability to make our Meadow Butter further catalyzed the process of building our own processing facility. In addition to the ability to control separation and production in our own facility, what is equally important to us is the fact that we’ll be providing business to local Amish farms that have been in need of a market for their milk. We want to create a processing option for local small dairy farms who struggle in a milk market that favors large farms with high milk out-put.

While we are truly excited for this development, we can’t overstate the unexpected financial stress that both Kriemhild and our family farm have experienced over the past few months without the ability to sell our flagship product.
We have been thinking of ways to mitigate this loss and raise the funds needed to complete the last few weeks of construction on our new facility so that we can resume producing the delicious grass-fed local product you've come to love.

That is why we’ve decided to commemorate the occasion with the First Churn Meadow Butter Fundraising Campaign.

To celebrate the return of Meadow Butter, we will be auctioning off a limited amount of butter from the very first churn made in our brand new facility. We hope you will consider purchasing some. Any amount will help as we make this long-awaited transition and return our most popular product to the market.

Other than the butter purchased during the First Churn Meadow Butter Fundraising Campaign, there will be no further Meadow Butter available until next spring, making this the perfect time to stock up as we head into the colder months and holiday season.

Thank you for your consideration and support. We truly appreciate it and we look forward to finding our way back into your kitchen soon.

Sincerely,
Bruce Rivington and the Kriemhild Crew

How to Enter:

At last, Kriemhild has dived into the classy world of Organic Cultured Butter...  ​​

Today cultured products are made a bit differently. Since regulated pasteurization destroys all bacteria in milk, micro-bacterial cultures must be added to cream to begin a controlled fermentation. This is how our Crème Fraîche is made, and it is also the first step to making our new Cultured Butter.  Once the cream and culture has sat at the correct temperature for an amount of time, it is churned slowly in small batches to reduce moisture and increase butterfat percentage. ​ Once the cream and culture has sat at the correct temperature for a specific amount of time, it is churned slowly in small batches to reduce moisture and increase butterfat percentage. By law, American butter must contain at least 80% butterfat. However, like with our other butters, our Meadow Butter and our Bakers’ Butter, we set the bar a bit higher and shoot for what is called “European Style” butter. Our Cultured Butter currently has a butterfat percentage of 84%. The higher butterfat content intensifies the natural flavor of all our butters.

Bruce Rivington, Dairy Farmer and Kriemhild Owner, unloading a small batch of fresh churned cultured butter from our churn. This butter will be carefully weighed and hand packed into 1lb blocks. (The smell is amazing!)

You can use Cultured Butter for all the same things you’d use any of our butter for: baking, cooking, spreading, eating from a spoon. It’s made with the same care and attention as our Meadow Butter and Bakers’ Butter. It just tastes a bit different.  You can find our new Organic Cultured Butter at the Kriemhild Kupboard, ​our Online Store, or at your closest Meadow Butter or Bakers’ Butter retailer. Already a big fan? Grab yourself some Cultured Butter Merch.

Ingredients:

Method