Addressing the challenges of new decentralized flour mills in alternative agriculture and food systems: a study on grain aging prior to whole wheat milling

Entrepreneurship in grain infrastructure has emerged in the development of new wheat supply chains from farm to market to support alternative agriculture and food systems. This includes the establishment of flour mills with the ability to preserve the identity of small batches of flour, mediate flour quality and safety, and retain processing and value within rural communities. Yet new decentralized flour mills may lack adequate space and environmental controls and refrain from pesticide treatments necessary for long-term grain storage and aging prior to milling. The relationship between grain aging and whole wheat bread baking quality under informal storage conditions was evaluated using factor and multiple regression analyses. The results indicated that aging correlates positively with whole wheat bread baking quality over 1 year of storage. Growing location, growing year and their interaction, however, were better predictors of quality. These results suggest when storage space and environmental controls are limited, blending grain by growing location could be a more effective and practical method to improve quality than grain aging or blending by growing year, which both necessitate long-term storage. Blending by location may strain definitions of regional or local in some alternative systems.