Graf Creamery

Graf Creamery Inc. | Over 75 years of Experience

"If you're going to do something, do it right the first time "- Robert Bleick

A History of Graf Creamery

Graf Creamery Inc. is located in the village of Zachow, Wisconsin, which is approximately 20 miles west of Green Bay on Highway 29, and 2 miles north of Highway 29, on County Trunk F.
      Albert H. Graf bought the creamery as a cheese factory in 1926. Two years later, in August of 1928, he married Emma Krueger of Cecil, WI (who was the Shawano County Supervising Teacher) and the two of them managed the Graf Creamery until 1953. In 1953, the Graf’s daughter, Margery married Robert Bleick of Bonduel and they joined her parents in the operation of the business. Margery and her mother worked together on the bookkeeping for the creamery and Bob and Albert managed the plant work. Bob and Marge Bleick had four children, James, Mary, Linda, and Ruth--all of whom worked for the business at one time or another. Presently, their son, Jim is the President and Ruth is the Secretary - Treasurer. Marge continues to work as the financial manager and the corporate Vice President. Jim’s daughter Michelle works at the creamery, as well as David and Matthew Suski, Bleick grandson’s.
      Albert Graf began the butter making operation about 1928. Both cheddar cheese and brick cheese were manufactured at the creamery, as well as butter, until about 1940 when Mr. Graf decided to discontinue the brick cheese operation. In 1963, the cheddar cheese operation was discontinued to make more room in the factory for the growing butter business. In 1979, Graf Creamery stopped manufacturing butter in their round barrel churn, and purchased a continuous Simone churn, which is in operation today. This churn can produce 7000 pounds of butter per hour. The average amount of butter churned in one day is 100,000 pounds, which is managed by two shifts of employees. Graf Creamery employs 40 + people in various phases of the business. The company owns eight semi-tanker trailers with which its truckers pick up cream from various cheese factories and dairy’s. Also three refrigerated semi-truck trailers are owned by Graf Creamery which delivers butter to wholesale warehouses, bakeries, etc. throughout Wisconsin and neighboring states.
Graf Creamery has recently (January 2008) started manufacturing and packaging Organic, Grassfed, and rBST Free butter under private label, along with custom packaging of over 30 different brands of unsalted and salted butter. We are among the top 3 butter producing plants in the state and have a complete line of butter products available to our customers. Our butter is packed into 68#, 25kg, 50#, 24# bulk boxes, printed into 1# prints, 1/4# prints, 2# tubs, continentals, or whipped and packaged into 5#, 7#, and 20# containers. The whipped butter is especially unique, since the creamery was one of the first in the state to sell whipped butter which was manufactured from freshly churned butter. The company labels are Gold Medal, Golden Glow, and Cloverdale.
      Graf Creamery is a United States Department of Agriculture federally approved butter manufacturing facility. This is a high honor for any creamery, and requires the plant to be routinely inspected by USDA inspectors periodically to maintain this rating. Recently, the government has made labeling a product to their strict specifications mandatory and we can make all grades of butter with a USDA, WI Grade, Organic, or Kosher CRC label. Graf Creamery won Best of Class in the World Championship Cheese Contest with the unsalted butter in 2008, the salted butter won Best of Class awards at the 2001 & 2007 United States Championship Cheese Contest and also won 1st Place Blue Ribbon awards at the Wisconsin State Fair in Milwaukee in 9 out of the last 17 years, most recently in 2008. In the future, Graf Creamery expects to be just as successful in its growth in the twenty-first century as it has been in the past eighty-two years.

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