Since 1999 we have used only organic flour in our bread. We buy our flour from Keith Giusto. Keith’s family has been involved in organic grain selection, milling, and baking in the Bay Area for three generations via Giusto’s Vita Grain, the company founded in 1940 by his grandfather. For many years at Giusto’s, Keith found himself increasingly drawn to the farmers on whom he depended for grain and to the part of the business concerned with grain selection, milling, and flour formulation. Following that interest he left the family business to become an owner and operator of Central Milling, an historic flour mill in Logan, Utah. He subsequently founded Keith Giusto Bakery Products to distribute flour from that mill as well as a wide range of other bakery ingredients.

During and after the wheat harvest every year Keith and our production manager, Rick Kirkby, survey all of the organic wheat available to us and plan the blends for the coming year. Rick has experimented with many of the wheat varieties that tend to be available and Keith has long-standing relationships with farmers distributed across most of the wheat growing areas of the USA. Since each year’s growing conditions are different in each area, and since the growing conditions so strongly affect the characteristics of the wheat, all of their combined experience is necessary every year to meet the challenge of assembling wheat blends that taste good and perform reliably, while still maintaining strong relationships with the farmers, whose crops may be adversely affected by factors beyond their control.

Taking care to maintain these relationships may not result in the lowest wheat price imaginable but does produce a stronger, more resilient supply network. In 2008, for instance, unprocessed organic wheat prices shot from $8 per bushel, to $15, then $25, and even $50. Many users simply could not get the wheat they wanted in that environment because the farmers supplying those networks could make so much more money by disregarding existing contracts and selling to the highest bidder. Our farmers, on the other hand, held the line on the prices that they had committed themselves to sell at and filled their contracts at $25, despite considerable temptation to seek even higher prices.