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Jazz improv in the South West Grain Network

Fledgling microbaker Carrie Triffet riffs on one of the UK’s emergent non-commodity grain networks.

Members of South West Grain Network. Copyright: Robyn Minogue

On a grey February day in 2024, seventy or so people, numb with winter chill, gathered to spend the day perched on hay bales at Gothelney Farm in Somerset. It was my first wide-eyed introduction to the South West Grain Network. An extraordinary group of local farmers, millers and bakers, the members of SWGN are committed to friendship, support and collaboration, together exploring the ongoing process of learning to grow, then mill and bake with, their wonderful grains.

Many of the SWGN farmers are recent escapees from the commodity grain market, in which unrelenting economic demand for high yields and profit relies on heavy chemical inputs. It’s a soil and soul-killing paradigm. Here in the network, where growers commit to the joys and challenges of regenerative agriculture, the inputs are sunshine and rainwater. Farmers team up with nature to make beautiful music together.

Attitude shift

Without the familiar crutch of an agrochemical arsenal to lean on, many of the SWGN growers have found nature’s learning curve to be steep at times. Says Fred Price, farmer and co-founder of the network, “These farmers are learning how to consciously be part of their farms, rather than simply impose themselves on the land.”

It’s an important attitude shift in more ways than one, he feels. “Collectively we now see ourselves not as victims of a consolidated, industrial agriculture, but rather independent agents able to choose for ourselves. What seeds do we grow? What tendencies do our choices support? How do we best relate to the system we seek to change?”

Grist to the mill

This constant attentiveness to both process and end product extends to the millers and bakers as well. Industrialised flour milling grists are typically mixtures of commodity wheat varieties, blended from many anonymous sources, eliminating variability in the final product. But here in the SWGN there’s no such commodification; we receive exactly what nature gives.

True South West flour is typically a blend of YQ population wheat, developed by Professor Martin Wolfe at Wakelyns in Suffolk, and Mariagertoba, created by Anders Borgen of Agrologica in Denmark.

Most of the network’s True South West flour is produced at Cann Mills in Shaftesbury, Dorset. There the sixth-generation millers, Ollie and Michael Stoate, grapple with the unique challenges offered by SWGN wheat, including some fairly grim early harvests due to 2024’s dismal weather, to produce nutritious, high protein flour, with a great depth of flavour.

Working with nature

I watch with awe as the more seasoned bakers of the SWGN leap into the unknown with every new batch of 2024 True South West flour they receive, adjusting hydration, mixing and fermentation as needed. The bakers play off each other’s skills, knowledge and experience, approaching every bake like jazz instrumentalists. They trust the flow, the harmony and the occasional dissonance of what nature and the Stoates have provided this month or week.

From my own novice perspective, the flour can be maddening in its unpredictability, yet entirely worth the effort of cutting my coat according to the cloth. The flavour and character of the bread it produces is noticeably different. As an expat Californian living deep in the English countryside, my introduction to such honest seasonality and variability has been a welcome eye opener. Like most Brits, Americans are shielded from inconsistency and unpredictability in the foods we consume, even those from local farm stands. We’ve been taught to expect uniformity and ‘perfection’ all year round, whatever the weather. That pursuit is understandable perhaps, but it’s simply not how nature rolls. In attempting to achieve those goals, something vital is lost.

Mutual support

James Cartwright, one of the founding bakers of the SWGN, told me: “A few years ago it would’ve been unthinkable to imagine this quality and strength of flour could be grown organically here in the Southwest. That’s not to say True South West flour is easy to work with,” he adds, laughing. “In the beginning, with those terrible early harvests, this flour caused some existential crises amongst the bakers. But we helped each other through it.”

It was the unusually transparent, ongoing dialogue between farmers, millers and bakers that was key during those rough early days, James feels. “Honest communication with Ollie and Michael at Stoates helped us all learn how best to approach this flour. Meanwhile, the weather’s been great this year, so the 2025 harvest should be excellent,” he says. “We’re all looking forward to that.”

As a relative newcomer to the network, I’m bowled over by the unfailing kindness, patience and willingness to share. No beginner’s question is too stupid, and no advanced technical dilemma too complex, for careful unpicking and joint problem solving among the members. This deliciously vibrant local flour is training these bakers to become high-level dough whisperers. I want to be just like them…when I grow up.

Music of the future

As for the South West Grain Network itself, and what it wants to be as it grows up, Fred dismisses the idea of growth for its own sake as part of the old system, a paradigm based on inequality and exploitation at every level.
“There is hope here in what we’re doing,” he explains. “By linking ideas and individuals together through mutual interest, reciprocity and shared values, we can nourish smaller, alternative communities of supply. The SWGN acts as a model for other groups, as we embody this alternative to faceless, globalised supply chains. Ours is a local network of supply that prioritises care, trust and friendship. We as a network can collectively influence and share with other like-minded networks, in ways that are beyond us individually.”

In practising this shared vision, it’s clear the SWGN dances to a different beat, a new-old song of people and place. It’s the music of the future.

@swgrainnetwork

Carrie is author of four books, none of which is about bread.

Originally published in True Loaf magazine issue 64, October 2025.

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