Grain
When we started Sunflower Oven, we knew that our values conflicted with a traditional capitalist business model. We wanted to use nourishing ingredients, pay everyone a living wage, enjoy leisure time, and create a healthy work environment.
We didn’t just want to be a “fancy” bakery accessible to only a certain social class. Our goal is not to offer an “alternative” to the hegemonic industrialized economy. We want to build something better that can replace it.
All of the flour we use is milled in the South, with the majority coming from Carolina Ground, a stone mill outside of Asheville, NC. The town mill is historically an essential part of thriving local economies, as well as important gathering places. Throughout the 20th Century, agriculture conglomerates and large food processors consolidated both community mills and family farms. They also selected grain varieties for efficiency and shelf stability over flavor and nutrition. Jennifer Lapidus founded Carolina Ground in 2009 to begin to rebuild our local grain economy. Working with farmers in North Carolina, they treat grain like fresh produce. When farmer, miller, and baker work together, it is possible to operate at a scale that keeps ingredient costs competitive.
The stone milling process is an ancient one, and the only option for most of human history. Powered by domesticated animals, flowing water, human labor, or electricity, stone mills crush the grain seeds between two granite stones. In stone mills, all parts of the grain—germ, bran, and endosperm—are ground together. Since the germ contains fats and proteins, the flour is more nutritious and fragrant, but also more perishable. Many people find breads made with stone ground flours easier to digest. Because all of the flour we use is stone ground, we use it within three months of its milling date.
As industrialized agriculture took over, so did new milling technology called the roller mill. Instead of being ground between stones, grain berries are fed through rollers that crack the bran. Endosperm, bran, and germ are then separated and ground separately. All flour at the typical grocery store is roller-milled monoculture wheat, even if it is organic. Roller milling creates a shelf-stable flour that is very consistent, but does not retain much nutritional integrity. White flour is just the ground endosperm, and contains mostly just carbohydrates. In order to produce “whole wheat” flour, the bran, germ, and endosperm are then recombined.
We are forever grateful for the work of Carolina Ground and other mills who share our values. Without them, we can confidently say that Sunflower Oven would never have come to be.
