HOMEGROWN FLOUR POWER

Could you point out a locally farmed piece of beef or lamb on a supermarket shelf ? What about locally made cheese or butter? Probably.

How about a loaf of bread? That is a trick question. Something like 90% of the bread eaten in New Zealand is made from imported grains.

Sam Forbes from Wellington’s Shelly Bay Baker wanted to see if it was possible to create a loaf that looks after a local farmer, miller, baker and the health of Kiwis who eat it. He calls it a manaaki loaf.

“In the next three to four months we will see a worldwide wheat issue stemming from the Ukraine invasion. We have some food security here because we are an island [country], and we do grow a lot of our own grain,” he says.

Except we use most of it to feed cows, not people.

“There are also so many shipping containers that can’t come into the country, so trying to import is proving difficult.

“I want to show, with a single sourdough loaf, why we would want a circular domestic grain economy.”

Shelly Bay is a rarity because it has its own mill, and a direct relationship with a grain farmer.

“There’s no middleman, and no grain crisis as far as we’re concerned because we don’t have to rely on anyone else,” Forbes says.

“The people who might get into trouble are the big supermarkets, which import grain from Australia. Their prices might go up quite a bit.”

Forbes understands why most farmers wouldn’t bother making flour.

“The price they get for animal feed is quite good, and there are fewer restrictions on the crop.” But he says the organic farmers who supply him have a “deep philosophy” about feeding people.

South Island-grown grain arrives at Shelly Bay-owned Capital Millers in Miramar, where it is made into organic white flour, “which is near impossible to get in New Zealand”.

The special sauce in Forbes’ manaaki loaf is this organic white stone-ground flour. It is called T80 for short (80 stands for the extraction rate you get from the grain).

“T80 looks like whole wheat and brown, but performs like white flour. It’s much healthier, and still contains a lot of wholegrain,” Forbes says.

I want to show, with a single sourdough loaf, why we would want a circular domestic grain economy.

Most T80 flour in New Zealand is Turkish or Australian.

“Typical roller mill flour is 70-75%. They take the outside of the grain – the bran – out.” Freshly milled flour is “like coffee”.

“As soon as you crack it and it becomes oxidised, it becomes rancid,” he says.

Fresh flour tastes better, and is better for you. The biggest challenge Forbes faces is producing enough of it to sustain his bakery.

In his dream world, every New Zealand-owned bakery would have its own mill, and T80 “would be the norm”.

The manaaki is made of the good stuff, but how it is made is just as important. Unlike supermarket loaves, the manaaki is slowly fermented.

As anyone who tried lockdown breadmaking will know, naturally rising bread takes at least one day.

Supermarkets will label bread sourdough, “then you’ll look at the ingredient list and see they’ve added dried sourdough powder to cheat the process”, Forbes says.

“They just mix the flour and water. They divide, and within two hours it’s out of the oven.”

In doing that, the fast fermented bread loses flavour and the predigestive qualities that are good for your gut, and its shelf life. So supermarkets add in preservatives and lots of sugar.

The irony is two-fold. True sourdough lasts “because it’s acidic, and it pickles the flour”.

“And in the fermenting process, the sugars get eaten. Everyone blames gluten for obesity. Bakers know it’s not the bread itself, but how the bread has been made,” Forbes says.

“You can eat five slices of white bread and not be full. Or eat two slices of sourdough.”

About 10 bakeries, including Shelly Bay, are making their own version of manaaki loaves in partnership with non-profit organisation Eat New Zealand, to raise awareness about buying New Zealand-made flour.

Even in local bakeries, Forbes estimates only half would use local flours.

“It’s actually more expensive to ship wheat across Cook Strait, where we grow it, than the Tasman,” he says. “But ask your baker. New Zealand grows good wheat. We grow a lot. Not many people get to eat it.”

The bakers will present their manaaki loaves today at Eat NZ's food hui in Christchurch. For more information, go toeatnewzealand.nz.