Farm to Market Grains: your local, homegrown flour source
(Photo by DAC COLLINS) The Dillin’s stone mill, manufactured by Meadows Mill out of North Carolina, pulverizes the grain, which is then blown through a sifter (not pictured) and into a barrel. This system can produce a barrel of flour in roughly 30-35 minutes.
—By DAC COLLINS Before: this bucket of grain was harvested within sight of the building where the mill is housed.
(Photo by DAC COLLINS) The final product. Tim Dillin explains that the GMO FREE label, while important to many customers, is redundant, as there are no genetically modified grains currently available.
Flour is one of the primary staples of a well-stocked kitchen, and there are a handful of industrial mills with recognizable names that produce the majority of the flour available in the United States: Gold Medal, King Arthur and Pilsbury, to name a few. There are also, however, a few small-scale, family-run mills producing quality, whole grain flour around the country, and one of them is located right here in Boundary County less than five miles from the Canadian Border.
“It was around 1924 when my great grandfather moved up here,” Tim Dillin says, referring to their property that overlooks the Kootenai River Valley near Porthill.
The Dillin family has made a living growing grain for going on four generations now, but it wasn’t until last October that Tim and his wife Julie decided to start milling their own flour under the name of Farm to Market Grains.
So Tim purchased an old stone mill down in Lewiston and installed it inside a heated, ventilated building right there on the propery. This means that the Dillin’s entire operation is self-contained. During harvest time, Tim brings in the grain, which is dumped by the bucket-load into the top of the stone mill. The stones pulverize the grain, which is then blown through a sifter and into a barrel. Every step of the flour-making process happens right there on the Dillin’s farm, and that is what makes their products so unique.
“It’s growing here, right out here,” Julie says, pointing to the grain fields situated below where the mill is housed. “We mill it here and we bag it here. So we’re the only ones that touch it.”
Farm to Market Grains produces a variety of different flour types, including hard white, soft white and hard red. They also sell mixes, which, like the rest of their products, are made in-house.
“I’d like to hopefully add another mix this spring...I’m thinking biscuit maybe. I try everything before, and I’m baking all the time making sure it all works,” Julie says.
Tim admits that while the marketing aspect of the business has been somewhat stressful, he is pleasantly surprised with the success they’ve had so far.
“I would have been happy if we did 5-6,000 dollars worth of business, and we more than doubled that the first year. That’s a lot of five lb. bags of flour,” Tim says proudly, adding that they sold significantly more flour this winter than they did during the warmer summer months.
The next step for Farm to Market Grains is to expand their market. Their products are currently on the shelves at Sharon’s Country Store, Yoder’s and at the Super One in Bonners Ferry. They are also available in some Sandpoint stores as well as a few locations in Clark Fork and Troy.
The key, according to Tim, is to get their products into some of the bigger markets further south. At this point, distribution is really the Dillin’s only limiting factor, as their small mill can churn out a whole lot of flour.
“You can do about 200-250 pounds of flour in an hour,” Tim says. “And if you gotta bag all that by hand, you could keep yourself busy for quite a bit.”
For more information on Farm to Market Grains, visit them online: www.farmtomarketgrains.com. n