Maurizio’s Note:
In this guest post, Eric Pallant tries to answer a question many of us home bakers have: how can I support local farmers and millers by buying local grain? As it turns out, the answer to “what is local” isn’t as cut and clean as we’d often like.
I admit that I am envious of bakers who make their loaves using fresh, locally raised grains. It sounds like the ideal—for flavor, for community, for the environment. But I am also a little skeptical. Is local flour really any better than flour made with grain from far away? What are my options if I want heirloom wheat or ancient grains to bake with and they aren’t grown anywhere near me? What if I want to buy organic grains but my local farmers say that organic certification is not worth the cost? Should I just trust their practices because I like them? Is it even worth the extra cost to pay for local or organic?
Obviously, I have a lot of questions. Enough questions that I am writing another book called Loaf: How Bread—And Maybe Everything Else—is Really Made (coming in 2026). But for The Perfect Loaf, I decided to hit the road. I went in search of a short commodity chain here in western Pennsylvania: local growers delivering freshly harvested grain to local millers; millers who supplied freshly milled flour or organic flour (not necessarily local) to artisan and home bakers; and finally, bakers using flour from locally grown or locally supplied grain. I wanted to visit people who live and breathe this every day, making a living along the commodity chain that begins with farmers and ends with us, consumers. I wanted to ask them about how they make decisions according to both their values and the realities of the market.
Growing and Milling
My first stop was southwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at Weatherbury Farm. Clocking in at 130 miles from my home, it pushes the boundaries of what some people consider local, though there is no agreed upon radius in the food world. Some locavores stop at 100 miles; the USDA says 400 miles counts. Regardless of where you stand, Weatherbury comes awfully close to checking all the boxes a baker might hope for. The farm is certified organic, and Nigel, Marcy, and their son Dale Tudor, the family farmers, are adamant about eschewing chemicals. They raise heirloom varieties of wheat, spelt, emmer, einkorn, rye, corn, and buckwheat.
You realize that healthy soil has a fresh, soul-rejoicing quality to it and that most of the rest of the soils you have ever smelled are as sterile as the plastic-wrapped breads in the grocery aisle.
As I began walking around the farm, I immediately noticed the wonderful smell of the earth itself. The aroma of their soil is sublime. The Tudors said that they have been working to enrich the quality of their soil for years. “The amount of carbon sequestered in our silt-loam soil has nearly tripled,” said Nigel. Inhaling the smell of excellent soil is analogous to breathing in the scent of freshly baked bread. You realize that healthy soil has a fresh, soul-rejoicing quality to it and that most of the rest of the soils you have ever smelled are as sterile as the plastic-wrapped breads in the grocery aisle.
I got to have a long discussion with the Tudors, and at one point I asked how they managed insect infestations and weeds without using any pesticides. “We rotate crops,” they said, “so no field sees the same set of plants from one season to the next.” That means an insect that specializes in bedeviling spelt, for example, is going to face a forest of clover as soon as the spelt is harvested. Spelt bugs, generally speaking, do not eat clover, so they starve or scram, leaving the land infestation-free.
“Also,” they added, “the dense canopy of clover crowds out weeds.” Marcy Tudor said, “Nigel and Dale use hand-held spreaders, so they walk about 40 miles when they plant clover. The clover imparts nitrogen fertilizer to the soil.” Since they harvest hay from their clover fields several times a season, the continual cutting makes it hard for any weed plants to grow tall enough to produce seeds.
Of great convenience to their consumers, they own a pair of Osttiroller stone mills to turn their harvests into flour. Once a month, bakers can drive to the farm to pick up freshly milled flour. Most exciting, and perhaps unique to Weatherbury, their website hosts a field-to-mill grain tracker. You can see when and how their grain was planted, watch it grow, observe the harvest, and marvel at the flour it has produced. For bakers too far away to drive, the Tudors will send this month’s flour to you in the mail. Which means that not everyone getting Weatherbury’s flour, was buying it because it was local.
As idyllic as the Weatherbury Farm may be, it is limited in what it can do. The 100 or so acres that the Tudors farm is hilly and some of their property is forested. That means that their fields have to be small–none is larger than five acres–which then means they cannot use large machines. With the property and manpower they have, they cannot increase production. At present, about 40 people or so show up for a monthly pick-up and another 20 get their flour in the mail.
Moreover, the quality of their flour, as well as the yield of a particular grain, varies from year to year. Some years the weather is dryer, wetter, colder, or hotter than it is in other years. The protein content in the same variety of wheat that you purchased last year might not be the same this year. For a home baker, that might not be a big deal, but to run a baking business, you can’t have that kind of inconsistency from bag to bag–not to mention the uncertainty of knowing there will be enough flour to buy. “Home bakers can cope with the annual variation in the quality of the flour,”said Nigel. “Some years a flour might be higher in protein than in other years. Commercial bakers really want consistency.”
Milling and Distributing
My second stop was to visit T. Lyle Ferderber just east of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Since 1985, T. Lyle has been a regional distributor of organic foods through his company, Frankferd Farms. T. Lye is also a grain farmer and miller. His company supplies storefronts, coops, health food stores, and families who pick up their orders at one of his drop-off locations. His customers order items like canned tomatoes, trail mix, dairy products from local Amish farmers, noodles, tofu, and paper towels from a 46-page single-spaced, double columned catalog. Every two weeks Frankferd Farms’ trucks ply the roads of Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Delaware, D.C., and half of Virginia.
Like Weatherbury Farm, Frankferd Farms deals only in certified organic products. In contrast to Weatherbury, however, T. Lyle has taken a more expansive approach to the grain economy. Yes, T. Lyle grows and mills some of his own wheat, and he sells flour made by Weatherbury Farms. But Frankferd’s trucks passing through Harrisburg on the return trip from Philadelphia pick up flour made from Small Valley Milling (225 miles east of its base), and Stutzman Farm (130 miles west) in Ohio puts their flour on a truck and sends it to Frankferd.
To supply his customers with specialty organic flour, T. Lyle receives truckloads of products like Type 00 from Central Milling (Utah and California), and gluten free flour from Authentic Foods (California). Many consumers (across half a dozen states) consider Frankferd Farms to be local because they can speak with T. Lyle directly. I think what they really mean is that Frankferd Farms is family owned, not a large corporation.
I know, it’s confusing. For people near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, purchasing flour that T. Lyle has grown and milled himself, Frankferd Farms flour is about as local as you can get. The Ferderber grain mill is housed in a shed that smells like springtime, fresh grain, and the promise of tasty baked goods to come. T. Lyle adjusts his stones until the runner stone (the spinner) is about 1/32” from the bedstone and then makes micro adjustments until he is happy with the fineness of the emerging flour. “The origin of the phrase, ‘Keep your nose to the grindstone’ comes from this process,” he said. “If I get the stones too close, the grindstones rub together and I can smell it.”
When I asked why T. Lyle doesn’t use more locally produced grain, he said there were several problems. “A lot of local farmers have equipment that is too old and outdated to adequately clean grain,” he said. “Their harvesters mix in straw, stalks, and stones. I can clean a ton or two without blinking, but I don’t have room to store ten thousand pounds. Likewise, if the lot is too small, it is not worth my effort.” It is just too difficult to run his own farm, his own mill, a distribution business, and a full scale cleaning operation. Supplying organic food and staying in business were his top priorities.
Baking
After circling around Pittsburgh to visit Weatherbury Farm and Frankferd Farms, I made one more 100-mile trip to meet two bakers within the city limits. Both were referred to me because they prioritized flour made from local grains.
The first was Chloe Newman, one of three women who has helped launch Third Space Bakery. This start-up bakery is cooperatively owned by its workers and sells pastries, cakes, cookies, scones, and sourdough breads. They also offer very popular workshops.
I asked Chloe how she and her co-workers set their priorities when it comes to purchasing flour—about 500 pounds per week. “My priority is local because of my farmer’s market experience,” she said. “Relationships matter. Also, local flour has more flavors, more aromas, more life,” she said. “It is less sterile.”
As we tried together to pin down a definition of local, the matter of choosing flour became more fraught. “We try to buy Small Valley flour from Frankferd Farms.” At the time of our discussion I did not realize Small Valley was more than 200 miles away. When I asked Chloe to rank her most important considerations, she placed “flavor” at the top. Not far behind was knowing her suppliers. “I buy my flour from Frankferd Farms because it is local and organic,” she said.
But, buying local and organic can be very expensive. Our bread can seem expensive to our customers: seven to nine dollars a loaf. The cost of our bread is because it takes a lot of labor and skill, and organic flour costs more. We have to explain all of this to our customers.”
The second baker I visited was Neil Blazin, owner and co-founder of Driftwood Oven. Neil made his mark baking sourdough pizza. In addition to his storefront pizzeria, he also has a facility where he and his staff prepare pizza, bread, cookies, and pastries for wholesale delivery to 18 shops around the city of Pittsburgh. In the past he used flour made from grain grown by the Tudors at Weatherbury Farms. “No question about it, flour made at Weatherbury is very tasty. But I cannot run a business with their level of production. They might not have enough flour. Their flour varies from bin to bin. It is expensive.” Now he buys from Frankferd Farms.
“I use at least two and half tons of flour every month. I need my flour to be organic and reliable, so I buy Central Milling flour from Frankferd Farms.” Central Milling has mills in Utah and California, so when it comes to flour, local is not at the top of the list for Driftwood Oven. Organic is Neil’s top priority. “I feed a lot of people,” Neil told me. “I should nourish them to the best of my ability.”
Like Chloe at Third Space Bakery, Neil hears from his customers that his pizzas are expensive. “I buy my meat, cheese, and produce locally. It is important to me to help small businesses by keeping my money in the local economy.” Neil also goes to great lengths to explain why his products cost what they do.
The Other Side of the Production Coin
I regularly visit farmers that live just a few miles from where I live. Karen and Joe Sablyak grow soft red winter wheat. They are conventional farmers, meaning they use fertilizers, pesticides, and large equipment to cultivate their crops. Soft wheat has lower protein content than hard wheat so it is typically milled for use in pastries, cookies, crackers, and products that do not require a high gluten content. It is also mixed together with high protein wheat in large mills to make all purpose flour.
What large-scale conventional farmers, as opposed to small-scale farmers, bring to their fields are economies of scale. Their fields cover scores, if not hundreds, of acres. Their equipment is gargantuan. The resulting price for their products is typically much lower than it is for small-scale production.
Many bakers I know would discount wheat from the Sablyaks because it is grown using techniques associated with Big Ag. But by all other measures, it fits the bill: I know and like the farmers; their products are reliable and predictable; they are very local. Their flour, when it reaches the market, is less expensive than flour that is organic or what some people call local. And think about how consistent flour is from bag to bag when it comes from King Arthur or Gold Medal. At huge industrial mills, where Sablyak flour continues its journey, food scientists blend wheat from different farms to ensure that key characteristics like protein and ash content are exactly the same in every bag.
Decisions, Decisions
After my travels I considered how I might prioritize purchasing flour for my bread. The wheat farmers most local to me are super friendly. I like them a lot. They are not the kinds of farmers you meet at the farmers market, but just like vendors at the farmers market, they invite me to visit their farms any time I’d like. They answer all my questions. They let me ride in their tractors. They are proponents of conventional, rather than organic, farming, and their products are unfailingly consistent and inexpensive.
I like the idea of buying flour from Weatherbury Farm, not least because of all the farmers I have met and spoken to, they are among the best at combating climate change. I baked with their flours and the flavor was incredible. Probably worth the price. But definitely not worth the two and a half hour drive, which leaves mail order as the best way to receive their products. Another mark-up, both for my bank account and the environment.
When I go through the Frankferd Farms catalog, I can find pretty much everything I want: organic, heirloom, and freshly milled. But knowing what I know now, when I add together the mileage for wheat to come from eastern Pennsylvania or Ohio to get to T. Lyle and then travel by truck 100 miles up Route 79 to get to my local market, is it still local?
As a sourdough baker, it is comforting to know that, regardless of my sourcing, I am still making tasty, homemade, nutritious bread using a leavening technique as old as civilization itself. Yes, it would be terrific if all flour was locally grown, organic, heirloom, inexpensive, always available, 100 percent predictable, fresh, and delicious, but the lesson drawn from my travels is that It is difficult to make everything a top priority. I guess making bread is a lot like life.
All photos in this post by Eric Pallant unless otherwise noted.
