Two Guernsey Girls Creamery opens second retail store

Cheryl Hentz

Contributor

July 14, 2025

FREEDOM – Four years ago this month, Tammy Fritsch and daughter Breanna officially started Two Guernsey Girls Creamery on their small, five-acre farm in Freedom. 

With a lot of help from her husband, David, Fritsch said she and Breanna bought and turned an old equine facility into a state-of-the-art, small-batch micro-dairy and creamery where they produce white and flavored milk, cheese and cheese curds.  

Since their start, the mother-daughter duo said they have doubled their herd each year, expanded their barn, opened a second retail store and will be adding A2 ice cream to their product line this summer.

A peek in the barn

Fritsch said the Two Guernsey Girls’ herd – registered under the prefix Muy Bonita Guernseys with the American Guernsey Association – are bred to ensure they carry the A2A2 milk protein gene.

Because of that, she said their milk and other products are easier to digest than conventional milk or milk-based products – a game-changer for people who are otherwise lactose-intolerant. 

Fritsch said when herds carry the A1 beta-casein protein, many people often have problems digesting milk products – not so with A2 milk.

She said her herd of Guernseys, 15-head currently, only carries and produces the A2A2 beta-casein gene.

Besides being easier to digest, Fritsch said A2 milk is high in beta-carotene and is reputed to have other benefits, such as improving one’s vision, heart, lungs, cognitive function and skin health.

“Every animal that is here is tested before it arrives, and ours all carry the A2A2 casein gene,” she said. “And when we breed, all of our offspring are bred to be A2 producing, but they’re also tested. Just in case anyone would have a question, we like to have that certification on hand for every animal here.”

When they started with the two cows, and retrofitted the former equine property, Fritsch said they put five stalls in the barn.

“In our minds, we thought five cows would produce enough milk,” she said. “But in January this year, we retrofitted the other side of the barn and put in eight more stalls. So, we’re now at 13 stalls. There are three dry cows that did not come into the barn. So, with 15 cows, our barn and our land are pretty much maxed out.”

A second retail store opens

As their herd has grown, Fritsch said so, too, has the demand for their milk and other products, which now includes ice cream. 

The pair said they’ve had an on-site farm store since day one, but last month, they opened a second retail store located at N4006 County Road E, Suite A in Freedom – a mere 1.7 miles away from their farm store. 

“We’re going to try utilizing the farm store just for our wholesale accounts,” she said. “We have so many people coming in and picking up product for either their own store or wherever they’re taking it to, that our farm store isn’t big enough for that and the ice cream merchandise, the ice cream machine and other equipment, and the storage of things like cones, waffle dishes and so forth. We couldn’t do anything besides just scoop ice cream.”

Fritsch said they initially considered adding another building to the farm.
“If we had built another building on the farm and this ice cream venture didn’t work, then we’d have that extra building here,” she said. “So, we decided to rent retail space for the ice cream store and other products. We will see how it goes.”

Fritsch said the new retail space is 1,700 square feet and includes a commercial kitchen and walk-in cooler – and is large enough for them to not only operate their ice cream business and sell their other products, but bring in some other vendors as well.  

“We’ve brought in some artisan cheese and products from other local vendors and still have plans to add some more,” she said.

Some of those products, Fritsch said, include meat, honey, butter, chicken and duck eggs, salsa and cheese boards.

The ice cream currently sold at the retail store, she said, is small-batch ice cream made in their own machine.

And though it isn’t A2 ice cream yet, Fritsch said the plan is for it to be soon.

“Our mix is proprietary and is currently being formulated,” she said. “We’re still testing our milk to get our base for the ice cream. We’re very close, but not quite there yet.”

Fritsch said she estimated they are two months or so away from being able to make and sell A2 ice cream.

“But when that happens, our ice cream will be 100% A2,” she said. “[When] we opened up our second [retail store] in mid-June, we opened it with a commercial base ice cream. We’ve purchased the equipment to make the ice cream ourselves. It’s just not with our A2 milk right now.” 

When they do reach that goal, Fritsch said they will be the Midwest’s only operating A2 ice cream producer. 

“We’re sourcing our A2 ingredients from the West Coast,” she said. “That’s the closest we can find right now. And in the new store, we can do sundaes, shakes, slushies, ice cream cookies and other novelty items, etc. We are a full-blown dairy store. A little bit different from our original vision, but it’s nice.”

Fritsch said they started out with eight flavors of ice cream and are making ice cream about six hours a day.

“Once the curve slows down – which we hope will be kind of soon, once everybody has tried it – then, sometime probably in the next two months, we will go to 16 flavors of ice cream. By fall, we’ll hopefully be at 21 flavors.”

In time, Fritsch said they might even reach 26 flavors. 

Give and take

Sometimes, Fritsch said when one thing comes along, something else has to give

Never anticipating this kind of growth, and certainly not so fast – nor did she think the ice cream would be as much of a hit as it has been – Fritsch said they are looking ahead at possible options if ice cream sales remain as strong as they already are.  

“I think with ice cream, and the amount of milk we’re going to have to use, something may have to go,” she said. “We just don’t know what. As it is, I don’t know if I’m going to have enough fluid milk for all my fun flavors that I do. Or, am I going to have enough to make three batches of cheese a week to supply my outlets? I just don’t know.”

During the first week of the new store, Fritsch said they went through 98 gallons of milk.

“I’m bringing in 75 gallons a week right now,” she said. “Of fluid milk that would be a day of cheese that couldn’t be done. Of the 411 gallons our herd produces a week, 75 gallons will have to go toward ice cream, 175 gallons goes for cheesemaking and the rest is for fluid milk. So, we’re juggling things, and right now these are questions I don’t have answers to.” 

Fritsch also said the ice cream base itself can be costly. 

“There’s a lot of sugar that goes into the base and sugar is very expensive right now,” she said. “Then there’s the ingredients that we’re sourcing from the West Coast, so we’ll have to see how much that is. I told my daughter that even if we just did our staple flavors [of fluid milk] – like vanilla, chocolate and maybe a fun flavor made with our milk, that might just be it.”

Fritsch said there are other growing pains that come with such rapid, then sustained success.

Having enough good employees, she said, is the biggest growing pain they are experiencing now. 

Between the farm and the new store, Fritsch said she has 19 employees – 17 of which are “young kids” at the new retail store. 

“I was doing payroll the other day for their very first paycheck and that is very much out of my wheelhouse,” she said. “I do all the bookwork, so I (understand) it, but just managing everything can sometimes be a challenge.”

With the addition of the new store, Fritsch said that now includes managing different vendor orders coming in.

“I’m kind of giving them the reins of them just walking into my building and putting my order where it needs to go,” she said. “Normally, I did all that. So, it’s a growing pain, but it’s also good to have to rely on other people.”

Fritsch said though adding more land was something she once thought about so they could grow their own feed for the cows, it isn’t anymore. 

“We’re still on the five acres with no immediate plans to buy any additional land, and we’re still purchasing our feed,” she said. “When you add more land, then you have to secure more assets, and you have more maintenance on your equipment. So, it makes more sense to just buy our feed from someone else.”

Furthermore, Fritsch said she doesn’t want the business to get much bigger either.

“I don’t want to get much bigger, because then I lose my connection on the farm side,” she said. “There are days I don’t even see the cows. I track them on a cow management computer system. That’s not how I started or how I envisioned the business at this point. So, I don’t want to get any bigger.”

Fritsch said all the support Two Guernsey Girls receives consistently from the community – far and wide – makes all the hard work worthwhile.

Standing out with the creamery’s focus on A2 milk, Fritsch said they have consistently won awards.

In June, she said they won the fluid milk contest at the Wisconsin State Fair Dairy Products competition – with its chocolate milk taking first place for the third consecutive year. 

Also this year, Fritsch said there was a new category for any flavored milk, but chocolate.

Submitted two flavors, she said they won first for their vanilla latte and second place for their huckleberry flavor.

Fritsch said Two Guernsey Girls’ white milk took home a third-place award.

“Attending the state fair is always fun, especially since Breanna is not involved much with the farm anymore,” she said. “Breanna has been a Wisconsin State milk inspector for two years this coming October. So, she cannot inspect us and really has very little to do with the farm and the creamery because of her job. She’s really more moral support for me than anything else [nowadays].”

Hours for the new store are from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Head to twoguernseygirlscreamery.net for more.