The Asheville Artisan Bread Bakers Festival, in its eighth year, takes place on Saturday, March 24. This year’s theme, “Local Grain, Local Flour, Local Bread," speaks to the efforts of one dedicated group of bakers to bring locally grown and milled flour to North Carolina.
The first Bread Bakers Festival planted the seeds for the nonprofit Carolina Farm Stewardship Association to bring hard wheat to this state with the North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project. The project’s mill, Carolina Ground, will produce geographically distinct, WNC flour once fully operational. Bakers from Annie’s Naturally, Farm and Sparrow Breads, Flat Rock Village Bakery, Loaf Child, Wake Robin, West End Bakery and Wild Flour Bakery met for dinner the first year of the festival, and left with the notion that they needed to work toward a common goal.
"And when the wheat prices hit the roof and everyone was stunned by not just the price hike but the poor quality and inconsistency [of flour, we realized] we all needed to come together," says Jennifer Lapidus, organic grains coordinator for CFSA. "The confidence and enthusiasm behind local grain, local flour is huge," she says. "And speaking as a retired baker, when you're baking, you can't just use any old flour. "
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