Working with the grain

As demand for artisanal bread and craft beer continues to grow, Hattie Klotz meets the people building Ontario's small-scale grain sector from the ground up

- Hattie Klotz

BEFORE THE DAYS WHEN AIR FREIGHT brought mangoes, strawberries, and avocados to our stores year-round, and before a globalized food system raised our expectations to absurd heights - dark red cherries at Christmas, sushi spotted far from any ocean - we ate what was produced locally.

In a limited way, those who shop at farmer's markets and subscribe to CSA deliveries do this now, to the extent that the Canadian climate allows. However, when it comes to flour and bread, this has always been more difficult. Grains, mostly produced over thousands of acres of monoculture and plied with environmentally harmful fertilizers and pesticides, are shipped worldwide, severing the link between producer and consumer. For our daily bread, it has been nearly impossible to know your farmer.

However, Gabrielle Prud'homme, the owner and baker at Almanac Urban Mill and Bakery is endeavouring to change this. "We are working with small growers to transform what comes off their fields into good food for people close by," she says, "to rebuild a local grain economy."

Prud'homme founded Almanac Urban Mill in 2019, selling freshly milled flour made from heritage grains at farmer's markets and through specialty stores. In 2021, mid-pandemic, she added a sourdough-driven bakery location in the Canotek Business Park. All the grains that she mills for flour come from Canadian-grown heritage wheat and grain varieties, such as Red Fife, originally developed in Peterborough, Ont., in the 1840s. And she's finding the network for these grains is building in eastern Ontario.