From Farm To … Loaf

First came ​“farm to table” conscious eating. Now get ready for ​“farm to loaf.”

New Haven’s Chabaso Bakery is working on that new movement.

The idea is to bring together bakeries and restaurants and supermarkets throughout New England with regional farmers to fuel a local whole-grain economy.

Chabaso, a James Street bakery whose 125 employees turn out and distribute over 25,000 loaves a bread a day throughout the Northeast, has started buying more and more of its wheat, rye and oats from local dirt farmers who avoid spraying insecticides (over 20,000 pounds of wheat alone from Connecticut this year). They’ve started making more and more of their bread from non-processed flour, using whole grains.

Its affiliated Atticus Bookstore & Cafe on Chapel Street has been developing small-batch craft sourdough-based loaves (like its porridge bread and country breads) and croissants with the same mission. It plans to bake and sell exclusively whole-grain breads and pastries in 2020.

And the Chabaso team has reached out to growers, bakers, supermarkets, and millers throughout New England to develop a network that grows, contracts, bakes and sells in tandem creating a Northeast ​“grain economy.” It held its first ​“Grain Gab” here this fall, with plans to keep going. (Click here to learn more.) They’re seeking to bring whole-grains into mainstream grocery stores as well as specialty niche bakeries. The reasons are manifold: It’s more healthful for people (to eat that way) and for the planet (to avoid transporting grain or flour across the country). It tastes great. It can support and create local jobs and businesses.

Charles Negaro Jr., who recently took over full control of Atticus and Chabaso from his father, first got the idea for the New England network after visiting a similar one in the Pacific Northwest. Negaro; Chabaso communications chief Reed Immer; and Chabaso head baker Peter Abrams spoke about how they’re developing their idea, and why, during a visit to WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program. Click on the video below to watch the interview. (And click here to find out how to order a holiday ​“farm to loaf” bundle.)

“Our Local Grains Journey”

Negaro posted the following note on Chabaso’s website about the genesis of this effort:

At Chabaso we go through about 25,000 pounds of white flour every day, and up until 4 years ago, none of us had ever been in a wheat field. You could have shown me a wheat head or a wheat berry, and I wouldn’t have known what it was. All we paid attention to was price and protein level.

In the summer of 2015, I read Amy Halloran’s book The New Bread Basket and went to the Grain Gathering at the Bread Lab. I realized we were messing up. We’d been on auto pilot and took a wrong turn and never realized it. The way we were using our buying power and our resources was broken.

Over the next 4 years, I continued to bump into Amy at grain conferences around the country. She connected us to forward-thinking grain farmers and bakers, including Mel at Grand Central baking who showed us silos, the exact same ones we had at Chabaso, full of varietal wheat grown and milled in the Pacific Northwest. It was an inspiring example of what we could do at Chabaso.

Atticus, the sister business of Chabaso and my main focus over the past few years before recently rejoining Chabaso, built its own small bakery 2 years ago to focus on naturally-leavened breads made with regionally-sourced, fresh-milled grains. The Atticus team is working to remove commodity white flour from our operations by the end of 2020. We have people like Amy Halloran to thank for helping us see this is even possible.

Energized by the reception of our Atticus bread, we decided to bring that mission over to the much larger operations of Chabaso, which goes through in a day what Atticus goes through in year. In October of 2019 we co-hosted the Northeast Grain Gab conference with our friends at the Yale Landscape Lab. It was an amazing experience and helped to clarify some of the big opportunities in this movement, including increasing profits for growers, healthier soils, better flavor and nutrition for grains products, and a more connected and collaborative Northeast.

We’re just getting started with all this but the contents of this Farm to Loaf bundle offer a tiny glimpse at where we’re starting to head. Thanks for joining us on this exciting journey.

— Charlie Negaro