The Small-Town Creamery Behind Culver's Butter

If you've ever been to a Culver's, chances are you've sampled its simple (but brilliant) ButterBurger, so-called because the top of the bun is smeared with a dollop of rich, creamy butter. This gives an otherwise normal burger a little extra oomph. The chain got its start in Sauk City, Wisconsin, in the heart of America's dairyland, and being from the state with the most dairy farms, a local creamery was the obvious choice for the brand to source its butter from.

In this case, that means Alcam Creamery, an operation less than an hour away in Richland Center, which boasts just over 5,000 residents. When Culver's began sourcing its butter from Alcam, it wasn't just that it was located nearby. The business was, like Culver's at the time, family-owned, and prioritized working with and sourcing from small Wisconsin cheese plants and dairies.

Among the Culver's facts everybody should know is the story behind the creamery itself. Building on Wisconsin's long history of dairy production, Alcam Creamery was founded in 1946 by Cameron Peckham, and was later owned and operated by his son, Gary. The elder Peckham reportedly ran the creamery with his wife, Agatha, for over 50 years and was known to come into work well into his 80s.

At one time, Alcam sourced its cream from local operations within a 50-mile radius of the butter plant. By 2011, Alcam was getting its cream from 85 cheese plants nationwide, producing 200,000 pounds of butter daily while maintaining the rich, buttery flavor it was known for. Historically, Alcam has used whey cream from the cheese-making process, which transfers all the flavors and cultures into its butter, giving it an especially robust flavor.

Among the products it's known for, Alcam Creamery's old-fashioned, hand-rolled butter packaged in paper wrapping is still a popular favorite. Alcam makes both salted and unsalted versions of its butters, and, in addition to the rolls, also packages its butter in quarters (a.k.a. sticks) and one-pound blocks. An expert's advice for shopping for gourmet butter would be to look for butter graded AA, which, according to the metrics provided by the Wisconsin Division of Food and Recreational Safety, means it has a "fine and pleasing butter flavor."

There's no doubt Wisconsin has plenty of creameries to source its butter from, yet Culver's has chosen to stay close to its roots by choosing a statewide staple from a neighboring county. In addition to supplying the butter for Culver's ButterBurgers, Alcam Creamery sells its offerings in delis and other grocery outlets. If you're ever in the Wisconsin area, you may just have to pick up some local, hand-rolled butter.