A seventh-generation family farm in Columbus is churning up a new generation of dairy product: artisan butter.

Sisters Jennifer and Julie Orchard co-own Royal Guernsey Creamery where they milk 150 cows on their small farm. Their cows are the reason customers from all over the country are buying their European-style butter.

“Our butter is strictly the cream from the cows and salt. It’s just two ingredients,” Jennifer said.

It’s a labor of love, but the work never stops.

The sisters butter project started in 2016. Jen and Julie say they’re the only farmers in Wisconsin who are making butter from their own cows milk.

“It’s high butter fat and we have a premium quality milk and we want to be able to showcase that directly to our consumers,” Jennifer said.

Although Wisconsin is filled with cheese lovers, they said they want to put Wisconsin butter and artisan butter on the map.

“Everybody wants Wisconsin butter,” Jennifer said.

Their family farm dates back to 1943 with their grandfather who used to work at Golden Guernsey Dairy. The Orchard’s say Guernseys are a rare breed.

“We were looking at a way to make our farm more sustainable for future generations so we looked at producing a premium product that would take advantage of that milk so we started to make value-added butter,” Julie said.

“We have salted butter, we have two flavored butters – a cinnamon and also our signature which is a roasted garlic butter,” Jennifer said.

The Orchards say the best part is customers are supporting local. Meanwhile, Royal Guernsey Creamery is hoping to keep the family farm alive through future generations by starting a new generation of butter making.

This summer, their salted butter won first place at the Wisconsin State Fair Dairy Products contest and was then named Grand Champion Butter.