January 17, 2022 • 13 mins
Western SARE completed our second season of Fresh Growth. Thank you for listening! As we are working toward Season 3, we are sharing some special podcasts created by Washington State University students.
In this podcast, you'll hear from Shepherd's Grain COO and Director of R&D Jeremy Bunch. He discusses what makes Shepherd's Grain unique and how they work with no-till wheat farmers. The model links farmers with consumers. You'll learn more about the importance of traceability as well as no-till practices for soil health.
Student team: Mia Berry, Miguel Fuentes, James Pellervo, Mathew Zimmer
____________
Thanks for listening to Fresh Growth! To learn more about Western SARE and sustainable agriculture, visit our website or find us:
· YouTube
Contact us at wsare@montana.edu
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to fresh growth.
A podcast by the Western Sarahprogram that sustainable
agriculture research andeducation just for background
Western, Sarah is funded by theus department of agriculture's
national Institute of food andagriculture to promote
sustainable farming and ranchingacross the, and west through
research education andcommunication efforts.
Like this podcast, we arepreparing for our third season,
(00:26):
which we'll launch on February.
First.
In the meantime, we are sharingspecial podcasts produced by
students in Washington, stateuniversities, introduction to
agricultural and food systems,class, the students interview
producers and ag leaders on avariety of topics.
We hope you enjoy and learn fromtheir work.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Hello everyone.
My name is Mia Barry, andwelcome to a special episode
done by a group of WSUundergraduate students in an
agriculture food science class,where we will be talking about a
special company named shepherdsgrade.
Our group is composed by MatthewZimer who made this interview
happen, Migo, Fontez and JamesPere who helped research and
(01:07):
organize this interview heretoday with us.
We hash shepherds green CEO, Mr.
Jeremy bunch.
Thank you so much, Mr.
Bunch for making time in yourschedule to join us and teaching
us a little bit more aboutshepherds green and how they
work.
My
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Pleasure.
Thanks for inviting me.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yes.
To start off, wanna tell us alittle bit about what Shepherd's
grant is and how do you, youguys set yourself apart from
other companies?
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah, so really we were started in 2003 by a couple
of Eastern Washington wheatfarmers who saw that like 95% of
the wheat in this region getsexported overseas.
Most of it is soft light wheat,which makes, you know, noodles
flat breads things that we don'teat here as much, but they eat a
(01:52):
lot of, you know, especially inthe Pacific rim countries.
And so, you know, they'rebabying their crop along all
year and then harvest comes andthey just take it to the local
grain warehouse dumping in thepit and kiss a goodbye.
And they had no real connectionto where the food was going,
that they were producing.
(02:12):
So when we think of like farm tofork, we usually think about
customers or consumers who wannaknow where their food comes
from, who the farmer was, how itwas grown, but for farmers, they
really value knowing where theirfood is going and how it's being
used and connecting with thepeople that are consuming it.
(02:34):
And so that was really howshepherds that was kind of the
main value upon which Shepherd'sgrain was built.
These farmers wanted to startgrowing the types of wheat
around here that would producethe kind of breads and pizza
crus, things like that, that,that we eat more commonly in
this region.
And, you know, most of thatwheat was coming from Montana or
(02:54):
Kansas, Oklahoma out of theregion.
So they said, let's grow thosetypes of wheats here, sell it
more locally, Portland, SeattleSpokane, and, um, and so 30 or,
yeah, let's see, that was 2003.
So 18 years later here we are.
We're buying wheat from 35farmers in this region, the blue
region, and, um, milling in intoflour and, and selling it all
(03:18):
the over the place now.
So that's what we do.
It is different from all of theother flower companies that are
out there because we have thattraceability from the farm,
through the milling process, tothe bag of flour, we know which
farms, uh, grew the wheat thatare in those bags of flour.
So there's the trace ability.
(03:39):
But, um, besides that, the otherkind of cornerstone value that
we have is that all of ourfarmers are no-till farmers, so
they're not disturbing the soil.
So there's a real sustainabilityaspect that we use in our
marketing and, and sales and,you know, just, um, asking
people in the good place to buyflower, to support these farmers
(04:02):
that are, are using thosesustainable practices.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Thank you for that.
And then, so going off, basedoff a lot of what your guys'
website and what your guys'company does you guys talk a lot
about how you guys ensure highquality grain?
So how do you guys make surethat you guys' grain is the
highest quality?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Yeah, so there's, there's several things.
First of all, you know, when youdecide that you want to start
selling, uh, wheat that makesbread like we eat, and that's
like hard red winter wheat, ordark Northern spring wheat,
those red wheats with a kind ofa hard characteristic to'em, um,
there's a whole bunch ofdifferent varieties of those
(04:41):
types of wheat that farmers cangrow.
So if they say we want to growhard, red winter wheat, they go
to the sea dealer and there'slike 12 different varieties of
that kind of wheat that they cangrow.
And not all of them have thehighest quality attributes.
Some of'em yield really high,and that's about all they're
good for, but to make a loaf ofbread, it's pretty pitiful, um,
(05:03):
or vice versa, you know, theymight bake really good bread,
but not yield well.
So what we do is, is we take allthose varieties.
And once a year, we do baketests on, on them to determine
which varieties are the best formaking bread.
Um, and so we make kind of ashort list of varieties that
we'll accept from our farmersthat are just based upon, um,
(05:26):
good baking quality.
So we're really picky aboutthat.
It's kind of like the gate, um,for quality control is to say,
we're only accepting thesevarieties that are the best,
excuse me.
But then after that at harvesttime, um, I go around and
collect, you know, five samplesof the wheat that's been
harvested from each of thefarmers that we contracted wheat
(05:47):
with.
And then I send that in to, toget a Frio graph.
It's a test where they, theyactually do a bake test.
They, they mill up the fivepounds of wheat.
They bake a loaf bread with itand do some, an analytical on it
to, to show how the doughperforms for, uh, each farmer's
wheat.
So most flower companies orflower mills when they get wheat
(06:10):
in, they just want a consistentprotein.
Okay.
That's the main qualityattributes that they're looking
at with us.
We know the protein from each ofour farmers so that we can blend
for consistency there, but also,um, we just know all of this
analytical data that we can makesure that we are sending to the
mill to make sure that it'sconsistent too.
(06:31):
And that's just as important asknowing what the protein is.
So we're really, we have areally tight sort of
micromanaged in a good wayability because of the
traceability to manage forquality.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
So then also going kinda now days of how things
have been affected.
So how has COVID 19 affectedyour guys' company?
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Yeah, it was really hard because most of our
customers were bakeries and, youknow, throughout the Pacific
Northwest.
And so when they were shut down,we stopped selling flour.
So it was, it was, it was prettydevastating for a while,
especially for our customers,but, but it hurt us in the sales
department too.
But what happened was so 99% ofour, uh, flower sales are what
(07:20):
we call wholesale, you know,direct to distributors who then
who then sell it to bakeries orrestaurants.
But, you know, when we saywholesale, I'm talking like 50
pound bags or bulk loads of, youknow, trucks.
Um, and so that's 99.9 perpercent of our business is
selling 50 pound bags.
(07:42):
1% of our business is sellingfive pound retail bags in
grocery stores.
It was just a very small amountof our business.
And, but that just during COVIDit completely flip flopped and
all of a sudden everybody's athome has extra time, wants to
figure out how to, you know,make their own sour dough, bread
loaves.
Um, so the demand for retailflour just spiked during the
(08:06):
heart of the COVID lockdowns.
And, um, we, we weren't reallyprepared or able to meet all of
that demand in such a shortperiod of time.
And that's where we saw, notjust with us, but, um, with
flower production.
And of course, all other sortsof food products, there was just
big hiccups in the supply chain.
(08:28):
So the lesson that we learnedfrom that is we needed to be
more diversified and have, youknow, increase the sales of the
retail bags of flour, the fivepound bags of flour, so that
we're not caught in the likethat when there's supply
disruptions for a pandemic orfor whatever reason, but at the
same time, it was reallyencouraging to see so many
(08:51):
people in the public recognizethat baking your own bread at
home is a valuable thing.
It's a fun thing.
It's a, it's a great art toknow.
And I mean, there's just nothinglike sour, sourdough bread,
that's been toasted up and a lotof butter on it.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
For sure.
So going off something you saidearlier is that you guys buy
from other, from farmers.
So what makes farmers wanna dobusiness with you guys and stay
with you?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So there's two things.
One is just that value that Isaid before of, you know, having
some connection to themarketplace that's really
valuable to them.
So, um, you know, oftentimeswe'll bring bus loads of our
customers from Seattle orPortland out to the farm so they
can see what no till agricultureis firsthand.
(09:39):
Um, you know, get to speak withthe farmers face to face.
There's a lot of, um, untruth orhalf truths about agriculture
that, you know, people can readabout on the internet.
And so to have that ability tojust talk to farmers directly,
ask, you know, questions and betransparent about it all, it's a
great learning experience.
So our farmers love that, butsometimes we also take them to
(10:02):
Seattle and take'em to a tour ofa bunch of bakeries that use our
flour.
And, you know, it's, the farmersare just impressed that, you
know, these bakeries, likethere's this French, uh, pastry
bakery that we took'em to onetime in Portland where it was
almost making some of ourfarmers tear up, cuz they're
looking at like these superfancy pastries, you know, gold
(10:25):
leaf on, on the chocolate.
And, and it's like, how do youpull off this magic with our
flower that we do on the farm?
I mean, they're just blown away.
And so to, to be able, I mean,that's what Shepherd's grain
does, is it real, reallyprovides that ability to make
those connections that arevaluable to the farms.
And then the other thing thatthe farmers appreciate is that
(10:45):
we pay them for a bushel wheatbased upon their cost of
production, plus a a 5% profitmargin.
So, um, when we first startedthe company, we were with
Washington state extensioneconomist, basically built a
spreadsheet where the farmersenter in all of their expenses,
everything from the big ticketitems, like what their
(11:08):
fertilizer costs, their labor,their seed, their fuel, all the
way down to what they ought tobe reimbursed for their home
office, their health insurance,everything is taken into
account.
And at the bottom, it pops out a, a price per bushel that they
need to make in order to meetall of their expenses.
So, you know, the, the farmerslike that model, the bankers,
(11:30):
their bankers love that modelbecause it just, it ensures that
their costs are being covered astheir other option is to sell
into the commodity markets, um,which are just really extremely
volatile.
And, and don't always pay thefarmer what he needs to make in
order to stay in business longterm.
There's a economicsustainability component to the
(11:53):
whole shepherds grain program.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Kind of going off that more of why, what makes
farmers wanna stay with you is,are you guys looking for more
farmers to like meet growingdemands or anything like that
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Currently we're not.
So we kinda have a policy thatwe don't add new growers until,
or unless our current growerbase is unable or unwilling to
supply us the wheat that weneed.
So on average, our farms marketabout 15% of their wheat through
us and the rest of it goes intothe commodity market.
(12:28):
So, um, we just need to drive upmore demand for our flour, sell
more flour, and then our farmerswill have the opportunity to
sell more wheat for that growth.
Um, and if they don't want to,then at that point, we would go
looking for other farmers.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Well, thank you so much D for coming with us to
talk about Shepherd's grain,we've learned so much about who
you guys are and how you guysdeveloped.
You told us about how you guysare ensuring high quality grain
for your guys as consumers, andalso a little bit about how
COVID affected you and whatmakes farmers wanna stay with
you.
(13:04):
So thank you so much forteaching us more about
Shepherd's grain.
And then I'd also like to thankeveryone for listening and I
hope you guys have a great day.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Thank you for listening to fresh growth.
We hope you enjoy this episodefor more information on Western
Sarah grounds and our learningresources visit Western
sarah.org.
Hello, and welcome to fresh growth.
A podcast by the Western Sarahprogram that sustainable
agriculture research andeducation just for background
Western, Sarah is funded by theus department of agriculture's
national Institute of food andagriculture to promote
sustainable farming and ranchingacross the, and west through
research education andcommunication efforts.
Like this podcast, we arepreparing for our third season,
(00:26):
which we'll launch on February.
First.
In the meantime, we are sharingspecial podcasts produced by
students in Washington, stateuniversities, introduction to
agricultural and food systems,class, the students interview
producers and ag leaders on avariety of topics.
We hope you enjoy and learn fromtheir work.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Hello everyone.
My name is Mia Barry, andwelcome to a special episode
done by a group of WSUundergraduate students in an
agriculture food science class,where we will be talking about a
special company named shepherdsgrade.
Our group is composed by MatthewZimer who made this interview
happen, Migo, Fontez and JamesPere who helped research and
(01:07):
organize this interview heretoday with us.
We hash shepherds green CEO, Mr.
Jeremy bunch.
Thank you so much, Mr.
Bunch for making time in yourschedule to join us and teaching
us a little bit more aboutshepherds green and how they
work.
My
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Pleasure.
Thanks for inviting me.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yes.
To start off, wanna tell us alittle bit about what Shepherd's
grant is and how do you, youguys set yourself apart from
other companies?
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah, so really we were started in 2003 by a couple
of Eastern Washington wheatfarmers who saw that like 95% of
the wheat in this region getsexported overseas.
Most of it is soft light wheat,which makes, you know, noodles
flat breads things that we don'teat here as much, but they eat a
(01:52):
lot of, you know, especially inthe Pacific rim countries.
And so, you know, they'rebabying their crop along all
year and then harvest comes andthey just take it to the local
grain warehouse dumping in thepit and kiss a goodbye.
And they had no real connectionto where the food was going,
that they were producing.
(02:12):
So when we think of like farm tofork, we usually think about
customers or consumers who wannaknow where their food comes
from, who the farmer was, how itwas grown, but for farmers, they
really value knowing where theirfood is going and how it's being
used and connecting with thepeople that are consuming it.
(02:34):
And so that was really howshepherds that was kind of the
main value upon which Shepherd'sgrain was built.
These farmers wanted to startgrowing the types of wheat
around here that would producethe kind of breads and pizza
crus, things like that, that,that we eat more commonly in
this region.
And, you know, most of thatwheat was coming from Montana or
(02:54):
Kansas, Oklahoma out of theregion.
So they said, let's grow thosetypes of wheats here, sell it
more locally, Portland, SeattleSpokane, and, um, and so 30 or,
yeah, let's see, that was 2003.
So 18 years later here we are.
We're buying wheat from 35farmers in this region, the blue
region, and, um, milling in intoflour and, and selling it all
(03:18):
the over the place now.
So that's what we do.
It is different from all of theother flower companies that are
out there because we have thattraceability from the farm,
through the milling process, tothe bag of flour, we know which
farms, uh, grew the wheat thatare in those bags of flour.
So there's the trace ability.
(03:39):
But, um, besides that, the otherkind of cornerstone value that
we have is that all of ourfarmers are no-till farmers, so
they're not disturbing the soil.
So there's a real sustainabilityaspect that we use in our
marketing and, and sales and,you know, just, um, asking
people in the good place to buyflower, to support these farmers
(04:02):
that are, are using thosesustainable practices.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Thank you for that.
And then, so going off, basedoff a lot of what your guys'
website and what your guys'company does you guys talk a lot
about how you guys ensure highquality grain?
So how do you guys make surethat you guys' grain is the
highest quality?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Yeah, so there's, there's several things.
First of all, you know, when youdecide that you want to start
selling, uh, wheat that makesbread like we eat, and that's
like hard red winter wheat, ordark Northern spring wheat,
those red wheats with a kind ofa hard characteristic to'em, um,
there's a whole bunch ofdifferent varieties of those
(04:41):
types of wheat that farmers cangrow.
So if they say we want to growhard, red winter wheat, they go
to the sea dealer and there'slike 12 different varieties of
that kind of wheat that they cangrow.
And not all of them have thehighest quality attributes.
Some of'em yield really high,and that's about all they're
good for, but to make a loaf ofbread, it's pretty pitiful, um,
(05:03):
or vice versa, you know, theymight bake really good bread,
but not yield well.
So what we do is, is we take allthose varieties.
And once a year, we do baketests on, on them to determine
which varieties are the best formaking bread.
Um, and so we make kind of ashort list of varieties that
we'll accept from our farmersthat are just based upon, um,
(05:26):
good baking quality.
So we're really picky aboutthat.
It's kind of like the gate, um,for quality control is to say,
we're only accepting thesevarieties that are the best,
excuse me.
But then after that at harvesttime, um, I go around and
collect, you know, five samplesof the wheat that's been
harvested from each of thefarmers that we contracted wheat
(05:47):
with.
And then I send that in to, toget a Frio graph.
It's a test where they, theyactually do a bake test.
They, they mill up the fivepounds of wheat.
They bake a loaf bread with itand do some, an analytical on it
to, to show how the doughperforms for, uh, each farmer's
wheat.
So most flower companies orflower mills when they get wheat
(06:10):
in, they just want a consistentprotein.
Okay.
That's the main qualityattributes that they're looking
at with us.
We know the protein from each ofour farmers so that we can blend
for consistency there, but also,um, we just know all of this
analytical data that we can makesure that we are sending to the
mill to make sure that it'sconsistent too.
(06:31):
And that's just as important asknowing what the protein is.
So we're really, we have areally tight sort of
micromanaged in a good wayability because of the
traceability to manage forquality.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
So then also going kinda now days of how things
have been affected.
So how has COVID 19 affectedyour guys' company?
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Yeah, it was really hard because most of our
customers were bakeries and, youknow, throughout the Pacific
Northwest.
And so when they were shut down,we stopped selling flour.
So it was, it was, it was prettydevastating for a while,
especially for our customers,but, but it hurt us in the sales
department too.
But what happened was so 99% ofour, uh, flower sales are what
(07:20):
we call wholesale, you know,direct to distributors who then
who then sell it to bakeries orrestaurants.
But, you know, when we saywholesale, I'm talking like 50
pound bags or bulk loads of, youknow, trucks.
Um, and so that's 99.9 perpercent of our business is
selling 50 pound bags.
(07:42):
1% of our business is sellingfive pound retail bags in
grocery stores.
It was just a very small amountof our business.
And, but that just during COVIDit completely flip flopped and
all of a sudden everybody's athome has extra time, wants to
figure out how to, you know,make their own sour dough, bread
loaves.
Um, so the demand for retailflour just spiked during the
(08:06):
heart of the COVID lockdowns.
And, um, we, we weren't reallyprepared or able to meet all of
that demand in such a shortperiod of time.
And that's where we saw, notjust with us, but, um, with
flower production.
And of course, all other sortsof food products, there was just
big hiccups in the supply chain.
(08:28):
So the lesson that we learnedfrom that is we needed to be
more diversified and have, youknow, increase the sales of the
retail bags of flour, the fivepound bags of flour, so that
we're not caught in the likethat when there's supply
disruptions for a pandemic orfor whatever reason, but at the
same time, it was reallyencouraging to see so many
(08:51):
people in the public recognizethat baking your own bread at
home is a valuable thing.
It's a fun thing.
It's a, it's a great art toknow.
And I mean, there's just nothinglike sour, sourdough bread,
that's been toasted up and a lotof butter on it.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
For sure.
So going off something you saidearlier is that you guys buy
from other, from farmers.
So what makes farmers wanna dobusiness with you guys and stay
with you?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So there's two things.
One is just that value that Isaid before of, you know, having
some connection to themarketplace that's really
valuable to them.
So, um, you know, oftentimeswe'll bring bus loads of our
customers from Seattle orPortland out to the farm so they
can see what no till agricultureis firsthand.
(09:39):
Um, you know, get to speak withthe farmers face to face.
There's a lot of, um, untruth orhalf truths about agriculture
that, you know, people can readabout on the internet.
And so to have that ability tojust talk to farmers directly,
ask, you know, questions and betransparent about it all, it's a
great learning experience.
So our farmers love that, butsometimes we also take them to
(10:02):
Seattle and take'em to a tour ofa bunch of bakeries that use our
flour.
And, you know, it's, the farmersare just impressed that, you
know, these bakeries, likethere's this French, uh, pastry
bakery that we took'em to onetime in Portland where it was
almost making some of ourfarmers tear up, cuz they're
looking at like these superfancy pastries, you know, gold
(10:25):
leaf on, on the chocolate.
And, and it's like, how do youpull off this magic with our
flower that we do on the farm?
I mean, they're just blown away.
And so to, to be able, I mean,that's what Shepherd's grain
does, is it real, reallyprovides that ability to make
those connections that arevaluable to the farms.
And then the other thing thatthe farmers appreciate is that
(10:45):
we pay them for a bushel wheatbased upon their cost of
production, plus a a 5% profitmargin.
So, um, when we first startedthe company, we were with
Washington state extensioneconomist, basically built a
spreadsheet where the farmersenter in all of their expenses,
everything from the big ticketitems, like what their
(11:08):
fertilizer costs, their labor,their seed, their fuel, all the
way down to what they ought tobe reimbursed for their home
office, their health insurance,everything is taken into
account.
And at the bottom, it pops out a, a price per bushel that they
need to make in order to meetall of their expenses.
So, you know, the, the farmerslike that model, the bankers,
(11:30):
their bankers love that modelbecause it just, it ensures that
their costs are being covered astheir other option is to sell
into the commodity markets, um,which are just really extremely
volatile.
And, and don't always pay thefarmer what he needs to make in
order to stay in business longterm.
There's a economicsustainability component to the
(11:53):
whole shepherds grain program.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Kind of going off that more of why, what makes
farmers wanna stay with you is,are you guys looking for more
farmers to like meet growingdemands or anything like that
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Currently we're not.
So we kinda have a policy thatwe don't add new growers until,
or unless our current growerbase is unable or unwilling to
supply us the wheat that weneed.
So on average, our farms marketabout 15% of their wheat through
us and the rest of it goes intothe commodity market.
(12:28):
So, um, we just need to drive upmore demand for our flour, sell
more flour, and then our farmerswill have the opportunity to
sell more wheat for that growth.
Um, and if they don't want to,then at that point, we would go
looking for other farmers.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Well, thank you so much D for coming with us to
talk about Shepherd's grain,we've learned so much about who
you guys are and how you guysdeveloped.
You told us about how you guysare ensuring high quality grain
for your guys as consumers, andalso a little bit about how
COVID affected you and whatmakes farmers wanna stay with
you.
(13:04):
So thank you so much forteaching us more about
Shepherd's grain.
And then I'd also like to thankeveryone for listening and I
hope you guys have a great day.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Thank you for listening to fresh growth.
We hope you enjoy this episodefor more information on Western
Sarah grounds and our learningresources visit Western
sarah.org.
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