Though it’s now hard to imagine, 23,000 grain mills once dotted the landscape of this country. The mills served as hubs for local grain economies in which farmers grew wheat to be milled nearby for use in local bakeries, which in turn made bread for their communities. This meant that wheat was grown (and milled and baked) all over the country — on a relatively small scale.

With the industrialization of our grain economy, the number of mills dropped to around a couple hundred by the late 20th century, and locally baked bread was largely replaced with industrial stuff. As a result of that industrialization, we have gained a great deal of efficiency and output, with wheat varieties being bred for yield, disease resistance, and ease of milling in industrial conditions. Large mills process grain by splitting it into its constituent parts, the most valuable of which is the white endosperm that makes our white flour. The more nutritious and flavorful parts of the grain often go to feed livestock. In this process, “whole wheat flour” is a product in which those separated parts are (mostly) recombined.

Where does your bread come from? The supermarket, of course!

But the 21st century has seen a movement to revive not only high-quality, hand-made artisanal breads, but also local grain economies that feature locally grown wheat, milled on a smaller scale, using mills that keep the entire grain together throughout the process. The milled wheat is then used by local bakers. Such an approach represents an idyllic vision of farm-to-table food production — and one that also creates a number of substantial challenges for farmers, millers and bakers.

For farmers, the challenges include finding wheat varieties that grow well and re-learning how to effectively grow wheat in places where it hasn’t been grown much for decades. This is particularly true for farmers who don’t live in climates amenable to modern wheat varieties, bred to thrive in a narrow range of controlled environments. For millers, the biggest challenge is working with farmers to take what they grow and producing flours that provide consistently good baking quality (because they are unable to blend wheat from across a wide range of wheat producers to achieve that consistency). Bakers in local grain economies must have the skills to take flours that are more difficult to work with, and less consistent from crop to crop, and still make appealing breads for their customers. Despite these challenges, this is one of the most noticeable trends in the artisanal baking world, where some bakeries mill at least a portion of their flours themselves and some even contract with local farmers for single-source supplies of particular varieties.

What does that have to do with us here in Southeast Idaho? Well, even though we do not have widely renowned artisan bakeries like Tartine of San Francisco, we do grow a lot of wheat around here (and it grows well). What’s more, down the road in Logan, Utah, Central Milling is one of the leading millers of organic artisan baking flours in the country (and also happens to be the longest continuously operating business in the state of Utah). This is not exactly a mom-and-pop stone mill grinding only local grains, but they do purchase the majority of the organic wheat produced in this region and blend it with wheat from other regions to produce highly prized baking flours.

Happily, Pocatello now has a local baker who uses those flours to bake bread for this community. Round River Baking got its name by embracing the ideals of the new local grain economies. It refers to a mythical round river that forms a circle in which everything that goes into it comes back around (see “Former ISU Professor Pursues Dream of Baking Bread, Idaho State Business Journal, November 28, 2017). Following these ideals, the bakery is also working to make use of its own small mill (made in McCammon) to grind grains from local farmers for its baked goods in the future.

So how does one partake of this local bread and participate in this aspirational version of a local grain economy? The Pocatello Co-op’s mission is to support local food production, and it provides a variety of local foods for its customers. Vegetables from Bowman Farms, meat and dairy products from Stanger Ranch, dairy products from Clover Leaf, and coffees roasted locally by Bill’s Beans, Leapknot and Steve and Harry’s are just some of what you will find on the Co-op’s shelves. And on Tuesdays and Fridays from 5 to 7 p.m., you will find tables loaded with trays of freshly baked, local bread from Round River Baking (for more information and updated schedules, go to roundriverbaking.com). The Co-op invites you to come in to shop and eat locally, six days a week, at 308 E. Center St. in downtown Pocatello.

Matt Sanger is the proprietor of Round River Baking and a board member of the Pocatello Co-op. He can be reached at roundriverbaking@gmail.com.