What make great food great?

From our very first day, Tenera Grains has been sourcing direct. Back then we were using teff from the farm in Addison, Michigan but now the list has grown. Teff, buckwheat, maple and sorghum syrup, cherries, pecans, pumpkin seeds, and flaxseed are all purchased directly from the producer. And of course, the entire Grain Collective line up! 

This style of sourcing is not easy. It is not efficient or cost effective. There’s a lot more tracking involved and ordering takes much longer than adding a bunch of ingredients to my cart for a distributor to deliver the next week. And oof the shipping - sometimes shipping costs more than the product itself! 

But here are 3 reasons why I’ll never stop working on adding more ingredients to that list:  

1. Because when we set out to make great food, that involves knowing the story behind the ingredient, the people who raise it and respecting the hours of dedication and care that goes into variety selection, field preparation, planting, tending, worrying, harvesting, processing and packaging. 

Great granola, snacks, or grains is always the goal and knowing the producer is a huge step in the right direction.

2. Because the middle of the supply chain is where margin gets eaten up. Here’s a path that commodity wheat can take: grower to grain elevator to broker to mill to distributor to food manufacturer to distributor via a broker to the grocery store to you. And that’s just for something simple like pretzels. You can bet every single player is taking as much of the dollar as they possibly can and the people at the beginning of the process often get the short straw. 

The National Farmers Union found that just $0.143 of every dollar spent at the grocery store goes to the farmer. At Argus Farm Stop, it’s $0.70. Paying farmers and crucial processors what their worth introduces dignity again and as Ari from Zingerman’s has written - revolutionary things happen when people have dignity. 

3. Because we’re creating the world that we want to live in. A one where the soil and people are healthier, more love for our neighbor and simply delicious food on the table. 

When you purchase a bag of Teffola Original, 35% by weight is sourced directly from the producer. Cherry Cacao is 48%. We will keep working until 100% of each bag is sourced direct. 

We’re bold in flavor & brave in character. It’s not always easy but it’s the right path for us. 

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