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October 28, 2024
GREENWOOD – When people would ask Westin Wuethrich – national sales manager and director of marketing for Grassland Dairy Products, Inc. – what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said the answer was always the same – “I want to be a butter maker.”
As the oldest of the fifth generation and growing up “oh, I’d say 70 yards” from the plant, Westin said it was pretty much a given he would one day write his own chapter in the Wuethrich family’s legacy.
“I always looked up to my grandpa, Dallas, and wanted to be just like him,” he said.
A bit of history
The legacy of Grassland Dairy in West Central Wisconsin dates back more than 120 years – which Westin said was built on the hard work of the Wuethrich family who immigrated to Wisconsin from Switzerland in 1893.
The Wuethrich siblings – which Westin said included his great, great, great grandfather, John S. – planned to use their knowledge of dairy products in America’s dairyland.
“I believe John S. and his brothers and sisters came over to the U.S. when they were teenagers,” he said. “When they were in Switzerland, they were farmers, and they made dairy products – cheese and butter.”
Once in Wisconsin, Westin said the family of dairy farmers soon established a butter business in their new home, sourcing cream from local farms.
Before long, Westin said the Wuethrich siblings split off in their own directions, yet continued to work in the agriculture industry in some way, shape or form.
Several years later, when a group of farmers in Greenwood needed help running their dairy plant and marketing their milk, Westin said John S. stepped in.
In the early years, before packaging equipment was available, Dallas Wuethrich said the local farmers Grassland sourced milk from would come to the plant after their evening chores and help wrap butter.
“It was about 5,000 pounds a day,” he said. “Today, we probably produce that in about 30 minutes.”
Eventually, Westin said John S. purchased what is known today as Grassland Dairy Products (which at the time was called Creamery Co.) from the group of farmers, “and the rest is history.”
Over the next five generations, Westin said Grassland has prided itself on remaining a family-owned company rising to the top of the industry through ingenuity, hard work and determination.
“Our innovation has come from a hunger within our employees to find small ways to be extra competitive,” he said. “No details in our business get overlooked.”
Today, Westin said Grassland Dairy Products is a leading manufacturer of dairy products and the largest privately owned butter producer in North America.
Rural Wisconsin proud
Being located in rural Wisconsin, Westin said, has been a major contributor to the company’s decades worth of success.
“Grassland is significant because of the employees who work here,” he said. “If it wasn’t for our employees, we wouldn’t have sustained 120 years.”
The company’s longevity, Westin said, can be directly credited to the hard work, loyalty and dedication of people of rural Wisconsin.
“There’s a lot of people here who have worked for Grassland for 25, 30-plus years,” he said. “The people who work at Grassland you see on an everyday basis, you either went to high school or elementary school with them or rode the bus with them – that is like a family within itself. There’s a lot of relationships and culture that’s very old here at Grassland.”
Westin said the family aspect of Grassland’s staff coincided with the company’s own five generations.
“It’s great to work with my dad, uncle, grandpa and brother on a daily basis,” he said. “There’s a lot of people who work at Grassland who have the same – their brother, uncle or cousin works here, too. So it’s like having a family at work.”
Products
From its early days, Westin said Grassland has been known as a private-label butter company.
“That means we’re making butter products for different retailers, food companies and distributors, and we’re slapping their label on the product,” he said.
Today, Grassland Dairy produces more than 70 butter and dairy ingredient products for retail, food service and industrial customers worldwide.
Historically, Westin said Grassland has been a milk-fat-specific company.
However, about 15 years ago, Westin said the company expanded its offerings to dry ingredients with the purchase of dryers.
“Now we get full components,” he said. “So, instead of just buying cream, where it’s mostly just your fat, now, we get all the components within milk, which are your proteins, sugars, milk solids and the fat.”
Once Grassland receives the milk from local farmers, Westin said the milk fat is separated and sent to the butter churning process side of the operation, while the other milk components are sent to the dryers.
“We make different dry-ingredient products, which are your milk protein concentrates, your milk protein isolates,” he said. “We make dry buttermilk in different kinds of specs – high-heat, low-heat, and we also make dry buttermilk in permeate.”
Westin said Grassland’s retail brand is an area he’d like to see grow.
“I want people to know who we are and what the company is all about,” he said. “I think we have a really great story.”
A future of innovation
Westin said true to its slogan – “Built on tradition, sustained by innovation” – Grassland is consistently looking at ways to innovate and become more efficient as a company.
Though many of those plans are under lock and key as details continue to be ironed out, Westin said one thing he can say is the Grassland workforce is getting younger, which helps with continued innovation.
“We’re creating a great culture of young people who are stepping into leadership positions here at Grassland,” he said. “It’s just fun to see how our younger team is growing and thinking outside of the box as they lead initiatives and projects at the company.”
Westin said having the younger generation of employees rise to the occasion is a step in the right direction for the longevity of the company.
“When I come to work, that’s what I get excited about,” he said. “Our employees are fired up about the future of this place.”
Part of that innovation in recent years, Dallas said, has come in the form of sustainability practices at the plant.
Westin said the company produces three times more butter than it did 15 years ago using less energy, land and water and producing fewer emissions – converting waste (any organic solids) into biofuel, which provides 100% of the electricity needed to power the plant.
All production water is 100% recycled – efforts, which Westin said save the company millions of gallons of water annually.
Grassland’s sustainability efforts were recognized in recent years by the Wisconsin’s Focus on Energy Program, presenting the butter maker with its Energy Efficiency Award.
Endless opportunities
Even though Grassland Dairy Products is a 120-year-old company, Dallas said “you need to have that fire in the belly” for future growth.
“You need to be able to look at things and say, ‘there are so many opportunities here,’” he said. “I feel like we are just scratching the surface here. I think the opportunities are just endless for this company.”
In addition to its production facilities in Wisconsin (Greenwood, Richland Center and Bonduel), Grassland has ones in Nebraska and Utah – employing more than 500.
For more on the company, visit grassland.com.
