Mainebiz

V O L . X X V I I I N O. V I M A R C H 2 1 , 2 0 2 2 16 banana bread. ere was an awakening among the food movement. MB: How did you convince farmers to grow more grain? AL: One way was through dairy farmers. An organic dairy needs organic grain. Not only that but dairy cows produce a lot of nitrogen and grain sucks up nitro- gen, so they go hand-in-hand. So we were saying, 'OK, grains may be more economically grown in the Midwest, but they're part of the ecological cycle. ey should not be lost.' Now it's part of the wider conversation about soil health, and we're now connecting glob- ally with people doing the same thing in Georgia, Iran and the UK. MB: How has Maine Grains grown since 2012? AL: We're now in the process of buying a third milling machine. It took us a couple of years to set up wholesale routes to bak- eries, but we're now mainstream. Within the past two years, we've gotten into 175- plus Hannaford supermarkets, plus mar- kets in southern New England. We've been on Martha Stewart's program. We won a 2021 Good Food Award. MB: What was the impact of COVID? AL: Early on, there was a real flour shortage. Going into COVID we were 90% wholesale, 10% retail sales. But when brewers closed and bakeries closed, that changed. Our online orders soared. In a matter of weeks, we were more like 50/50 wholesale to retail. We expanded to three shifts to pack retail bags. We were getting 180 orders a day and at one point we had a backup of 3,000 orders. People were home cooking and baking. It was a moment for flour. Now, whole- sale has rebounded, but we're still getting more online orders than before COVID. We never closed during COVID. We masked up and held outdoor meetings, and we all remained healthy. MB: How many farms do you work with? AL: We're now at 45 farms. We have a network throughout Maine, but also the Northeast, including Vermont and parts of New York. Over the next decade we're hop- ing to develop more growers in Maine. rough the Maine Grain Alliance, we're helping farmers get grants and build infrastructure and in general helping farmers get more involved and engaged. We think the cost of local grain will become more competitive, espe- cially as infrastructure, inflation and supply chain have become issues. One of the farming groups we've worked with is the Somali-Bantu community. ey grow by hand, with traditional cropping systems, often planting corn with vegetables under them. ere are more than 200 Somali-Bantu farmers [in the Lewiston/Auburn area] and they sell surplus corn, mostly flint corn used for cornmeal. MB: How has the Kneading Conference grown? AL: We took a hiatus last year and will be hybrid this year. It's a large event for the baking community, and there's more international presence now. We started it with Albie Barden, owner of Maine Wood Heat, who basically said, 'We need more of a conversation between farmers, millers and bakers.' We've now founded the Maine Grain Alliance, which is run by Tristan Noyes and offers baking education, heritage seed resources and has funds it disperses through grants. » C O N T I N U E D F RO M P R E V I O U S PA G E P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY The Miller's Table sells sandwiches, wood-fired pizza and coffee.

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