St. Brigid’s Creamery is a family-run Ontario Organic brand and dairy farm located in Huron County. Recently, we sat down with Bill Van Nes, founder of St. Brigid’s Creamery, to learn more about the business and how their commitment to organic practices makes their butter so special.
The Butter Breakthrough
St. Brigid’s butter brand launched in 2022, producing butter from his grass-fed herd of 300 A2 Jersey cows. Bill has aspired to make butter for years. Bill was working at his family’s conventional dairy farm when his friend with an organic dairy farm found a processor who would make organic butter. Suddenly, Bill was inspired to pursue his aspiration.
It wasn’t easy to break away from family convention and learn the ropes of organic farming, especially cropping without chemicals and intensive grazing cows. Bill’s goal was to hone a holistic approach: How could he become a true steward of the farm, a land which was its own organism?
Common grazing practice is for farmers to put cows out to graze for five days or more before rotating the cattle to other pastures. St. Brigid’s organic farm relies instead on mob grazing. Mob grazing is higher in density and shorter in duration, allowing the grass more time to recover. This means more hands-on work for Bill’s farm hands, and farm partners, but it also makes for an engaged and integrated approach that considers the wider needs of the cows as well as the land.
In many ways, Bill represents the need to “step back in order to move forward.” Conventional farming meets today’s industry demands for mass production, but Bill’s vision for organic invokes an old school type of farming. And for St. Brigid’s, the proof is in the butter: you can truly taste the difference.
The Cows Are Over the Moon
Calves are 4 or 5 months old when they start grazing on St. Brigid's farm, across greater square footage than if they were in the barn. The cows graze well over the minimum organic requirement of 0.3 acres per Cow.
St. Brigid’s farm maintains a strong herd dynamic by integrating bulls and cows. This isn’t unique to organic farmers, but rather demonstrates St. Brigid’s wider goal of wanting cows “just to be cows and have their natural desires fullfilled”. Bill made it clear: animal welfare is a top priority.
Bill emphasises that “in conventional dairy farming it is becoming more commonplace to synchronize ovulation with hormones to increase cow fertility.” Instead, St. Brigid’s organic practice relies on natural bull pheromones to encourage reproduction. This means that the dairy cows remain synthetic hormone-free, and so does the product.
With guidance from the Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO), Bill is able to produce milk seasonally, allowing for the best milk to make its way into their product. The higher consumption of grass in the summer tends to lead to more nutrient dense milk, helping St. Brigid’s farm dodge the usual lulls in summer yields.
Aside from these seasonal advantages, their butter may be easier to digest and absorb, thanks to the presence of A2 Beta Casein proteins. St. Brigid’s dairy products may cause less discomfort than consuming A1 Beta Casein milk products. In addition to a higher concentration of vitamins, their product has higher levels of essential fatty acids and more favourable Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratios.
St. Brigid’s Creamery captures the best strategies for dairy farming to offer a delicious product with a holistic approach to animal welfare and environmental stewardship. Their Jersey cows are a much larger percentage of gut. That is, they are more efficient than other cows at converting pounds of forage into butter fat, lowering St. Brigid’s carbon footprint overall. Traditional yet innovative in his approach, Bill delivers a butter that remains consistent, offers great nutritional content, and has that nostalgic flavour.
The Grass is Always Greener
A traditional organic feeding regime would include corn silage and alfalfa due to the higher annual yield but this causes higher levels of Omega-6 and lower Omega-3; What we need is the opposite. So, what grows on Bill’s pastures? Around 10 different species of grass, legumes, and forbs.
St. Brigid’s farm avoids alfalfa, which is often genetically modified or at risk of crossbreeding with GMO plants due to its wide pollination range. To keep their cows GMO-free, St. Brigid’s farm sticks to a grass and clover-based diet, diverse pastures, and low grain feeding.
St. Brigid’s Creamery is one of a kind, offering premium organic grass-fed butter made right here in Ontario, ready to be shipped to your front door.
For more information about the benefits of Grassfed cows, read our article: Organic: More than Just Grassfed or explore this University of Minnesota page.
Want to learn more about St. Brigid’s Creamery? Explore their site here.
For more behind the scenes information, follow St. Brigid’s Creamery on Instagram.
