Rhode Island Hosts its First Groundbreaking Breadbreaking

From farm to mill to bakery to table, Rhode Island reaps — and eats — what it sows. And that means, it takes a village to make bread.

Yesterday, the country's smallest state celebrated great strides in the sustainable foods movement with a "breadbreaking" to call attention to the first loaves of bread made with 100 percent Rhode Island produced flour.

The food chain went like this: the rye was grown on the Exeter, R.I. farm of Rich Shartner, which was harvested and then milled into flour by Paul Drumm III at the 300-year-old Kenyon Corn Meal Company in Usquepaugh, R.I. which was then baked into dense loaves of Rhode Island Rye bread by Jim Williams of the Seven Stars Bakery in Providence. The cooperative local effort was brokered by Farm Fresh, a nonprofit dedicated to promoted locally-grown, fresh, sustainable foods and farmers markets in Rhode Island.

According to a Providence Journal story, the 85-acre Shartner's Farm grows rye, not so much as a crop, but rather to replenish its soil and prevent erosion. Shartner was looking to utilize his surplus and posted it to the Farm Fresh Mobile Mart program where local growers post commodities for sale to area restaurants. Farm Fresh acts as the broker packaging produce, delivering goods and collecting and distributing money.

Jim Williams was happy to be using home grown and milled rye in his breads, which retail at the three Seven Stars Bakery location for $3.75 a loaf. "I don't know too many bakers, other than in the midwest, who can say their flour came from down the road," he said.

Photo courtesy of Farm Fresh.