Breadfarm
An Artisan Bakery Looks to Local Grains

In the heart of the small town of Edison, Washington, at the foot of Chuckanut Drive in Skagit County is a local bakery that wants to become even more local. Scott Mangold and Renée Bourgault, owners of Breadfarm artisan bakery, hope sometime soon to source locally grown organic grains for their breads and baked goods.

The problem is that not much grain grows in this Pacific maritime region anymore. According to Mangold, it takes hard winter wheats to produce the levels of protein he needs for his handcrafted breads. And although he was skeptical that high-quality hard winter wheats could grow in this climate, he now has a good reason to believe it will happen. Just down the road, in Mount Vernon, Dr. Stephen Jones and his team at the Washington State University Research Center are working to reintroduce heritage and commercial varieties of wheat, barley and other grains to Western Washington. Breadfarm assists by testing some of these grain varieties for baking and flavor qualities.


“With Steve’s energy and vision and drive, and what he’s already accomplished,” said Mangold, “we’ll be seeing this happening. . . . He’s produced wheat in Western Washington that I’ve baked with that has baked successful, lofty, nice loaves of bread.”

A Dream Becomes a Business

Breadfarm grew out of Mangold’s and Bourgault’s desire to produce quality, hand-formed breads in a way that allowed them to maintain their high standard of being “proud of every loaf.” They opened Breadfarm in 2003, producing 50 to 100 loaves of five main kinds of breads per day. Today they bake 1,000 to 1,200 loaves each day from 12 different doughs, and have 40 bakery products including such delights as handmade crackers, biscotti, pastries and granola. The bakery serves customers from the Canadian border to Seattle, keeping always a part of the business centered in Skagit and Whatcom counties.

Originally from Skagit, Mangold began his artisan baking career at the organic Black Bear Bakery in Portland, Oregon. He then moved to the Grand Central Bakery in Portland, and later Seattle, where he worked his way up to production manager, using 20 tons of flour a week.

Along the way he decided two things: he wanted to become the best baker he could become and ultimately, return to Skagit and open his own artisan bakery. He attended baking classes at the Culinary Institute of America, the San Francisco Baking Academy, and the famous Ritz Escoffier in Paris. His time in France, with its innumerable neighborhood bakeries, convinced him that local bakeries could be reestablished in the American food scene.

“A bakery should be local, ” said Mangold. “If you go to Europe, there’s a bakery on every other corner, and that’s a tradition we would like to see worked back into the American culture.” Mangold and Bourgault have built a successful artisan bakery and now look forward to the another tradition whose time is coming again — baking breads from local organic flour.

Video: Making Bread at the Breadfarm

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The Man Who Planted Wheat: Reintroducing Organic Grains to Western Washington
Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill: The Only Organic Flour Mill in Washington State