Comments on: Ethical, Regional, and Cheaper: Flour

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 14:26:12 +0000

Dave – I know. Cheaper can be had. My point is simply that the assumption that local and organic must cost more isn’t as absolute as folks think. I’m not suggesting it’s always cheaper.

By: dave

dave — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 22:09:59 +0000

I got a 20kg rogers flour for $9.99 at safeway.

By: An Afternoon with Bread « Kevin Kossowan

An Afternoon with Bread « Kevin Kossowan — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 00:23:50 +0000

[...] pace slowed for a moment today, so out came the flours. I made 3 doughs. 1] 50% Highwood Crossing Unbleached White, 50% Gold Forest Grains Whole Wheat. 2] 50% Highwood Crossing Unbleached White, 50% Gold Forest [...]

By: Kevin Kossowan

Kevin Kossowan — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 03:16:20 +0000

John – you certainly don’t need to justify your pricing to me, but I appreciate hearing about it here for others’ sake. Like with other agricultural products, cost of production of sustainable, organic, and local foods is high, and as folks like you build the food system we need, it’s going to cost a few bucks more. I’m happy to pay it. But for those who can’t, and to fight the ‘I can’t afford it’ argument for avoiding local, ethical food, I feel compelled to jump up and down when I find examples like this that break down the logic of ‘not being able to afford it’. Perhaps in my mind it’s a related step to getting to: I’m willing to afford it.

When I walk into a wine shop, I don’t expect a top-quality, small lot, small producer wine to cost me the least. Those expectations can’t be the same for high quality food. And as cheapass as I am, I am happy to pay a healthy premium for top-shelf-quality. Which is why I’m happy to pay your prices.

Keep me in mind for your bulk program. I have a small network of folks who would likely be interested if I were to stock up and then supply them from here.

By: john schneider

john schneider — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 18:43:37 +0000

Good post Kevin…we struggle a bit with pricing our products. We want to provide our products at as economical price as possible, but if people had any idea how hard it is to make a living farming with the price of labour, land, fuel, repairs, hail damage, drought, etc. etc. they would happily pay almost any price for good quality food. We feel that we charge what we need to to justify staying in business or to grow the little farm we now have. We are attempting to do what no other farmer is currently doing…grow organic grains, process them on-farm and deliver them directly to individual consumers. It is definitely not the easy thing to do and we are committed to try to make it work.

We do have ideas for plans (for next fall) to start some sort of small scale bulk flour program. If people are willing to bring us their containers for bulk flour, we would mill the grains straight into their containers at a reduced price. This alleviates the pressure on us to package and deliver flour to individuals and retail markets. Just a thought.

We do welcome any suggestions from people on what they would like to see happen with local grain products from our farm.

By: john schneider

john schneider — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 18:22:14 +0000

Valerie…the protein on our whole wheat flour, Hard Red Spring wheat, is around 14.5%. The soft white is lower at around 13%. We had a little difficultly with protein this year because of all the rain. I can control the amount of nitrogen in our fields with legumes and certain tillage practices, but I have yet to figure out a way to control the moisture! In a drier summer, the proteins would be higher. Still though, we supply Treestone Bakery, Queen of Tarts and Prairie Mill Bread Co. and they are finding the protein to be perfect for their bread products.

As always, we grow our wheat with baking in mind. Cheers!

John

By: Pain a l’Ancienne: My New Rut « Kevin Kossowan

Pain a l’Ancienne: My New Rut « Kevin Kossowan — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 13:32:57 +0000

[...] the QPR geek: 500g organic local flour = $0.95. Rest [including oven and wood], negligible or free. So call it $1. $0.30-0.50/pain. [...]

By: The End of the 2010 Allium « Kevin Kossowan

The End of the 2010 Allium « Kevin Kossowan — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 22:28:32 +0000

[...] the next major crop to fall from inventory will be our potatoes. Hence my recent interest in local grains. But those will make February, March at [...]

By: Only Here for the Food » Blog Archive » Food Notes for January 17, 2011

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 06:18:03 +0000

[...] wrote a great post about creative ways of sourcing products locally, without surrendering value for [...]

By: Kevin Kossowan

Kevin Kossowan — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 23:58:59 +0000

Mel – good for you, and yes, it seems that finally some local flour options are becoming available. I always thought it was ridiculous to grow it and have no sources.
QPC – you’re welcome.
Raymond – thanks for sharing that. My fear is often the ‘yeah, well you can because ‘blah” objection – access is important to me. So the fact that folks can simply go to where it’s produced, skip retail, and get hooked up is AWESOME. Granted, most folks would rather pay retail. But lots would prefer ethical, regional and cheap if it were an option, I think. Hence the importance of leads like yours.