June 17 / 9:00am - 5:30 pm

Redeeming Vermont's Grain Chain

Spend a day connecting with your most important ingredients: wheat, rye, and other small grains and touring some of the local grain chain. We'll meet in Burlington, and take a 1/2-hour bus ride to Nitty Gritty Grain Co., an 8th generation family farm in the Champlain Valley of Vermont. Next, back on the bus to visit Red Hen Baking Company, a champion of local grain and agriculture. With full bellies, you will head to Blair Marvin’s Elmore Mountain Bread. After a tour, it’s off to New American Stone Mills, just a 20-minute drive away. This is an opportunity to see Andrew Heyn’s handcrafted mills. 

The day concludes at Heike Meyer’s Bröt Bakehouse School and Kitchen. Heike will be finishing a bread sommelier program in September 2024, and is eager to share a bread tasting with you, featuring local grains. 

The day's itinerary: 

• 9:00 am Meet at City Park Fountain, Burlington VT City Park   

• 9:30 am Nitty Gritty Grain Company of Vermont Address: 4458 Lake Road, Charlotte, VT 05445  

• 11:30 am Red Hen Bakery Lunch Address: 961B US Route 2, Middlesex, VT 05602 

• 1:00 pm Elmore Mountain Bread Address: 1780 Hardwood Flats Road, Wolcott, VT 05680 

• 2:15 pm New American Stone Mills Address: 559 Harrel Street, Unit V4AA, Morrisville, VT 05661 

• 4:00 pm Bread Tasting at Brot Bakehouse School and Kitchen    Address: 38 Meade Road, Fairfax, VT 05454 

• 5:30 pm Return to City Park Fountain, Burlington, VT  

This tour is an opportunity to meet fellow bakers and explore the local grain economy. You will taste products made with Vermont grains and quite literally digest what you learned on the trip.   

Special thanks to Red Hen Baking Co. for sponsoring a delicious lunch! 

Nitty Gritty Grain Co. 

THE NITTY GRITTY... 

It all started with a question from a neighbor across a fence.  

How can all these grains be grown here but I can’t buy local flour?  

At the time, our certified organic farm, Aurora Farms, had been growing grains and selling the yield to the commodity market since the 1980s. The answer to the neighbor’s question explains the reality of the grain industry and how it’s near impossible to buy “Vermont grown flour” in the grocery store. An idea sparked, and that kernel eventually became Nitty Gritty Grain Company of Vermont. Selling local grains rapidly grew into reality, but our love of good tasting, healthy food and the land where it grows has a much longer history. Eight generations of our ancestors have been farming in the Champlain Valley - tracing back to growing grain in Shelburne, Vermont in the 1770’s. Today, Tom Kenyon, his children, siblings, and friends - carry on the Vermont farming tradition. 

Like the generations before us, we take great pride in our heritage, land, ingenuity, and products. Through tireless work on the fields in Shelburne and Charlotte, Vermont we produce certified organic grains that are the heart of our local organic grain company. Nitty Gritty minimally processes these locally grown grains, blending them in small batches to preserve the superior fresh flavor and nutrition of our cornmeal, cornmeal mixes, and flours. By producing these grains and turning them into a product you can feel good about eating, we are fulfilling a passion and commitment to the tradition of farming in Vermont and in our family. With each bite we hope you taste the difference that care and hard work can make. 

Red Hen Baking Co.

Randy has been baking professionally for 30 years. He and wife Eliza Cain started Red Hen in 1999 and continue to operate this treasure. They make bread that they deliver to most of Vermont and a little bit of New Hampshire. These days, half of their business comes from our cafe which serves pastries, sandwiches, soups, salads, bread, and coffee. For most of Red Hen’s history, Randy has worked closely with VT farmers to improve the baking-quality of their wheat.  Currently, over 95% of the grain that is used at Red Hen comes from three farms from the Northeast region. Randy is a Northern Grain Growers Collaborative board member and regularly participates in bake-tests of local grain for UVM Extension. 

Elmore Mountain

Blair Marvin is co-owner of Elmore Mountain Bread and New American Stone Mills with her husband, Andrew Heyn in Elmore, Vermont. After pursuing a culinary degree and working in restaurants on both coasts, Blair has spent the past 18 years baking wood-fired, sourdough breads. All of the bakery’s flour is milled on-site using Vermont-sourced, farm-direct, organic wheat and specialty grains. She is a vocal advocate for the development of relationships between farmers and bakers as a means to strengthen food systems and local grain economies.

New American Stone Mills

New American Stone Mills is the brainchild of Andrew Heyn, co-owner with his wife, Blair Marvin, of Elmore Mountain Bread in Elmore, Vermont, USA.Andrew began building mills out of necessity. He and Blair wanted to ensure that Elmore Mountain Bread could use fresh-milled, locally-sourced grain in all of their loaves. They sought to create bread that connected the land, the farmer, the baker, and the community.When they couldn't find a mill that met their standards, Andrew set out on a mission to design and build a better flour mill that would exceed their needs.He spent months researching, reimagining, designing, and building a new breed of stone mill: one that uses locally quarried Vermont granite to grind grain that keeps its nutritional properties and unique flavor of place. The new mill would feature commonly available motors and mechanical parts for ease of maintenance.Today, our mills reflect the insights and expertise we've gained from decades of working with stone mills in bakery settings. We use the highest quality materials and processes to create functional and beautiful stone mills.New American Stone Mills heralds the return of a rich milling and time-honored baking tradition. Our bakery, wood-fired oven, and stone mill at Elmore Mountain Bread have become destinations for like-minded bakers: a working model of how any bakery can source grain locally and mill fresh, nutritious flour onsite to produce healthy, delicious bread.Our continuing goal: to build a worldwide community of bakers who use only fresh-milled flour in their products, sourcing grain from local farmers, to deliver the fullest nutrition and flavor to their customers. To every one of our New American Stone Mill owners we offer our insight, knowledge, and experience to help you bring fresh,
stoneground flour to your baking enterprise.

Brot Bakehouse School and Kitchen

Heike was born in Berlin and raised in northern Germany (AKA rye-land). She has been baking since childhood, starting with apple cakes as a 5 year old and moving on to apprenticeship and stages in bakeries across the globe.  

After studying International Tourism and Languages she worked abroad for many years before settling in Vermont in 2008. A wood-fired bread oven in the kitchen rekindled her passion for baking, and in the first summer of living in Vermont she started selling bread at a local Farmer's Market.  

Always curious to learn more, she started studying with great bakers like Jeffrey Hamelman, Chad Robertson, Nicolas Supiot and Dave Miller among many others. Currently she studies at the German Academy for Professional Bakers to become one of just a few Certified International Bread Sommeliers in the world.