About Butterworks Farm
Butterworks Farm is located in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom and the heart of the northern Green Mountains. We milk cows and produce organic cultured dairy products in our on-farm creamery all year round, tending to our barn chores and animal care with love everyday.
Jack and Anne Lazor started Butterworks Farm on land they bought in 1976. Newly arrived in Westfield, they were ready to live their dream of self-sufficiency and land stewardship. They enthusiastically grew a farm and business that now supports 12-15 people, 76 Jersey cows (ages 0-15), many species of native and non-native grasses, legumes, medicinals and other plants on about 400 acres of pastures and hayfields. Some cats, dogs, chickens, ducks, pigeons and raccoons also live here.
The buttery, protein-rich milk of our Jersey cows is responsible for our yogurt’s excellent consistency and full flavor. To ensure a premium product, all our cows are born and raised on the farm. With optimal comfort and care from their human friends, Butterworks bovines fill up on the nutrient-dense pasture and hay, made up of abundant grasses and legumes sweetened by the biological life and activity in our soil.
Our Cows
Friendly, fun (and sometimes flabbergasting), our herd of Jerseys are a sweet and cuddly bunch of high-butterfat, high-protein milk and yogurt producers. Each with her own name and spot in the barn at milking time, our girls are lucky to spend their long lives grazing on mineral rich pastures and breathing in fresh mountain air. Winters find them munching on the sweet hay of summer in our winter solar barn, occasionally stepping outside to enjoy a warm blast of sun or to “snow bathe” in a passing flurry.
Our cows are happy because we focus on keeping them happy! We make sure that they always have just what they need: high-quality pasture or hay, fresh clean water, free choice minerals, plenty of space to move about, and natural sunlight all year round. These happy girls produce 30-40 pounds of exceptional quality milk and cream every day – the superb main ingredient in all Butterworks dairy products.
Beyond their instagram fame, our herd of Jersey’s is known throughout New England for the decades of strength, vigor, and calm nature that we have bred into them since the 1970s. Many former Butterworks farm hands and upstart organic farmers have started their own operations with a Butterworks cow.
BUTTERWORKS TRIVIA
Did you know ALL of our cows have names?
This is Nellie.
Crops & Pasture
TENDING AND BUILDING HEALTHY SOIL ON PASTURE AND HAY LAND.
Our co-founder Jack Lazor had a saying” “You have to give back more than you take.” That philosophy continues to drive our land stewardship practices, encouraging us to feed our hayfields and pastures with our slow-aged compost, drill specialized perennial seeds into the soil, and apply foliar feeds and trace minerals when possible. Many of these actions are laborious and costly, but giving back more than we take has translated to healthy cows and pastures…and really tasty yogurt.
Over the years and decades, we have been encouraged to learn that our efforts have led to land high in organic matter, rich in minerals, and abundant in carbon. The diversity of our perennial pasture plants and wildlife co-habitants continues to increase, beyond the intentional “cow salad bar” that we plant for our 100% grass-fed herd to medicate themselves while munching (cows just know how to keep themselves healthy!).
Farm History & Legacy
BECOMING VERMONT’S ORIGINAL ORGANIC DAIRY
Starting out as a small homestead-turned-home-kitchen operation, Butterworks began making and delivering organic yogurt in the late 1970s to neighbors throughout Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. At the time, we grew all of our own organic grain to feed our cows, pigs, and chickens, and made butter and cottage cheese along with our yogurt, buttermilk, and heavy cream.
While our yogurt began to fly off the shelf, lauded for its creamy thickness and wholesome taste, we ourselves became known for the way we cared for our closed herd of Jersey cows (we haven’t bought a cow since the 70s), our organic grain-growing techniques, and our slow-aged composting practices. We spoke at conferences, wrote books, taught classes, served on boards, and made many, many friends throughout the organic dairy farming community. All while running our on-farm creamery, just upstairs from the cow barn.
Today life on the farm looks both different and the same. Our focus on cow care led us to adopt a 100% grass-fed diet for the girls and we no longer grow grain (except for sweet corn – of course!). The next generation is deep in the hard work of managing cows, pasture, and hayfields and serving on boards. And the yogurt, still as tasty as ever, comes in more flavor alongside cream, buttermilk, and 3 flavors of delicious kefir.
Creamery
What started out as homemade yogurt, butter and cottage cheese prepared on the kitchen stove and delivered door to door has grown into on-farm processing of 4 to 5 thousand quarts of milk weekly in the form of organic, 100% grass-fed yogurt and buttermilk and kefirs all with live and active cultures.
These products (and a small amount of precious heavy cream) are available throughout Vermont and most of the Northeast.
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