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LOGAN — Some may not know the name, but bakers like Brent Whitford of Park City's Red Bicycle Breadworks do.
“We strive to emulate some of the bakeries in the Bay Area,” he said, and he uses the flour that they do — Central Milling organic flour.
The flour, milled in Logan, Utah, has become the flour of choice for San Francisco artisan bakeries, according to Central Milling President Lynn Perry: “Among the better bakers in the country — it’s actually a small community — and we’re famous in that community,” he said.
Central Milling, built in 1867, is the oldest continuously operated business in Utah, but its latest incarnation has roots in the 1960s. That’s when Perry’s father, George, read an article about hippies and the then-new organic food movement.
“The original movement was really these kind of hippy colonies or bakeries and they started making the bread,” Perry said. “He’d get a bin, set it aside, he’d bring in organic wheat, he’d have it made into flour and he started shipping it."
Today the operation includes the 1867 mill and two other facilities.
Central Milling supplies organic flour to Whole Foods, Amy’s Kitchen and the Alvarado Street Bakery, but the company really made a name for itself when it began perfecting a flour blend for San Francisco artisan bread baker Steve Sullivan of Acme Bread Company.
“And so we worked with him and it took about a year,” Perry said. “We’d try different types of wheat from a different part of the country. We’d grind it differently until we ultimately got the flour he wanted.”
Central Milling then began working with other bakeries, like the acclaimed Tartine Bakery and La Boulange, now owned by Starbucks. (Central Milling investors once owned part of La Boulange and the bakery owned part of the milling company).
“We look at it as more of an art form, the artisan baker we look at him more as an artist,” Perry said. “He’s striving to create something special, something unique, something different and we want to be part of that creative process.”
That’s why a traditional mill sells maybe three types of flour and Central Milling has more than two dozen types on its list of products: “Our CFO loves to say were the Haagen-Dazs of flour,” Perry said.
These days, Central Milling can’t get enough organic wheat to keep up with demand. They’ve had to import it from Canada and Argentina.
Using modern technology, Perry said, the company could mill flour faster, but an old facility like the 1867 mill produces a superior product, Perry said.
“Not only can we improve the health but we can improve the flavor and the quality of the breads in this country and we want to be part of that movement,” he said. “We feel like we lead that movement.”
