When we first approached mills about creating the Diversity Flour we were told that it was simply not possible. The ingredients in the Meadow blend were too different: hard grains and pulses, tiny oil-rich seeds, delicate leaves and flowers all have different densities, structures and milling behaviours. Conventional milling is designed around uniformity. Diversity Flour® was asking a mill to do the opposite – to make flour from difference.
We have Hodmedod’s to thank for this flour. They have always looked at thing differently. They have been redesigning and leading change in agroeconomic food systems with beans and grains for decades too. They understood that toDiversity Bread® is more than a loaf. It is a way of baking that structures bread as a community food system, connecting farmers, millers, bakers and the customers who buy bread. Like most community food systems this kind of system runs on a difference currency.
“Some companies source ingredients. Hodmedod’s nurtures relationships directly with the farmers.”
Resilient food systems are not held together by transactions alone. They are held together by relationships. Money does matter — everyone part of a system change has to be economically viable — but to step out of the conventional system and you lean into friendships, trust, knowledge, reciprocity and kindness and a little bit of defiance all long way to making the impossible happen. It is about supporting the environment and food resilience and as our climate becomes increasingly unpredictable, these relationships matter more than ever.
What Hodmedods have done is nothing short of remarkable – they make Diversity in every day bread achievable, without compromise empowering Diversity bread bakers to bake bread in a way that makes biodiversity edible, delicious and economically viable.
We think they are absolutely marvellous.
