Wheatley Creamery and Dairy Bar — and its Waverly Butter brand

By Stephen Wuerch

Arthur Poulter was born in Surrey, England, in 1889 and as a young man worked as a caretaker of a large estate called Waverly.

After his two brothers moved to Canada, Arthur soon followed — eventually settling outside of Wheatley on a farm located on the 5th Concession of Romney Township.

After working at a variety of jobs in town, Arthur decided to make a dramatic career change and follow his dream of establishing a dairy business.

The Wheatley Journal on May 7, 1931 stated, “After several weeks of preparation, Wheatley Creamery opened on Monday in the Crewe block on Talbot Street East in town (where the Car Barn Restaurant is today). Wheatley now has one of the most modern and complete creameries in western Ontario and all farmers within 20 miles are welcome to bring in their cream to the factory. If it’s more convenient, Mr. Doug Brown will come out and pick the cream up in his truck.”

Over the next several years, the creamery prospered and established itself as one of the premier creameries in southwestern Ontario. This success also caught the attention of many other town and city newspapers across southwestern Ontario, including the Border Cities Star, which reported that the “Wheatley Creamery had such great tasting butter, that its sales had recently doubled in the Windsor area and now has the enviable reputation for having the best quality butter around.”

In fact, at one point in the mid 1930s, the creamery had orders for its “Waverly Butter” from the majority of grocery stores and distributors in Windsor, Essex and Kent counties, including Canada Packers. The cream was brought in fresh daily to the creamery and — according to the Head Butter Maker Reg Willet — was churned in an 800-pound De Laval butter churn that was “electrically driven and followed a stringent scientific pasteurization process.”

It is important to note that Wheatley Creamery won many Ontario awards for its butter with both Reg Willett and Arthur Poulter’s son Roy (who became Head Butter Maker following Reg’s departure a few years later) being the forces behind those awards.

The churning process took almost two hours, and it was only then that the butter was ready to be cut into one-pound bricks, with each brick being wrapped by hand and placed in 45-pound boxes for distribution.

In 1937, a major expansion took place as the creamery now opened a new Dairy Bar in the Blue Gray Restaurant owned by Mr. and Mrs. A.L. Mc- Donald, which only grew the butter and dairy business further.

The Dairy Bar was an instant hit with the locals, with many from Leamington also making the drive. Along with the usual dairy bar selections of white and chocolate milk, cream and buttermilk, the Dairy Bar had a variety of flavours of ice cream, milk shakes and sold ice cream sundaes for 15 cents each!

Marie (Featherstone) Geddes, who served at the Dairy Bar stated, “The Dairy Bar was so busy in the evenings and on dance nights that it remained open every night until midnight.”

Throughout the 1940s, both the Dairy Bar and the Wheatley Creamery continued to flourish and in 1949, for the first time ever, the creamery exceeded butter production of an incredible 400,000 pounds annually. However, by 1959, the winds of change had started to blow as the Lambton-Kent Creameries had suddenly been put up for sale.

Seeing this as an opportunity for continued growth, Arthur Poulter made an offer and purchased the creamery. As a result, it was the end of an era as the Wheatley plant closed and moved all operations to that plant in Wallaceburg.

Arthur Poulter contributed much of his success to the wonderful and hard-working employees of the Wheatley Creamery and Dairy Bar as they were truly the ambassadors for the creamery business.

A few of the other employees who worked at the Creamery/Dairy Bar were Evelyn Poulter, Jay McDonald, Al McDonald, Andy Roi, Bob Charlton, Al Derbyshire, Bud Nicholson, Harry Branbury and Jean (Tait) Shuttleworth.

A very special thanks to the Wheatley Area Heritage Society for all the assistance they provided. The Wheatley Community should be very proud to have such an active, professional and hardworking group of individuals that are saving and archiving much of the area’s past history.

If there is any other historical information, photos or contacts regarding Wheatley Creamery and Dairy Bar that can be noted for permanent record, please email sewuerch@ hotmail.com. For more information on Windsor/ Essex County and other Ontario Dairies, visit Ontario Dairy Collectables and History Facebook page.