SUPPORTING SMALL FAMILY FARMERS
"Buy local."  It's becoming a mantra in an age when food production has become ever more anonymous and removed from any connection with people's daily lives.   Decades ago, we knew our grocer, butcher, and baker, and the farmers who brought their crops to market.   At Great Harvest, we still do.

That's right:  for more than 3 decades we have been a friend to family farms located in Montana.  We can trace the source of every kernel of wheat that goes into our loaves of honest, natural whole-grain bread.   That's because we buy our wheat from traditional family farmers who work in the fields and take pride in producing the finest crop, a product their long standing ties to the land on which they live.     They understand and produce our proprietary whole grains that have the baking qualities and hearty taste that's uniquely Great Harvest.

They're people like Tex Crawford, a third-generation wheat grower who still lives outside the 600-resident town of Valier, Montana, where he grew up amid the golden fields and blue skies.   Each harvest, Tex brings in the crop with the aid of his son and his 85-year-old father who, despite being retired, can't let go of his life-long passion for wheat-farming.   ("Officially" retired, he drives in 80 miles from Great Falls each harvest morning to ride the tractor and follow the combines in the seasonal ritual that defines the Crawford family identity.)    Tex's son, Cory, who studied biochemistry at Montana State and understands the science behind producing a superb crop, is at his father's side.

When the wheat has been cut and delivered to a small mill in nearby Conrad, it's cleaned, bagged, and ready for Jason, Great Harvest's buyer, to inspect and test-bake.   The dense, hearty bread that results keeps Great Harvest coming back to small family farmers like the Crawfords, whose intimate connection with the Montana soil is the link to the quality loaf on your table.

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