Across Kentucky, we have seen an increase in the local food movement, where consumers prefer to eat food and consume beverages which are grown, farmed, or produced locally.  The local food movement is evident from the recent boom seen in the craft food and beverage market.  Furthermore, the staple spirit of Kentucky, bourbon, has seen a rapid expansion in production and new distilleries entering the market.  As such, producers of craft foods and beverages targeting the local food movement often desire locally sourced inputs.  Specialty small grains (e.g., cereal rye, hard red winter wheat, and malting barley) are a vital input into products like artisan bread, craft beer, and bourbon.  Therefore, there are potential opportunities for Kentucky farmers to supply various specialty small grains to support the expansion in these markets.  

Unfortunately, farmers are hesitant to enter specialty grain production without known and proven markets.  On the other hand, food and beverage entrepreneurs are hindered in their development of regional or specialty small grain products due to lack of supply from farmers.  Therefore, we set out to help bridge the gap of information in the specialty small grain value chain.  With support from the Kentucky Small Grain Growers Association, we conducted stakeholder interviews with end-users of specialty small grains.  The goal of these interviews was to identify critical success factors for these markets to flourish in Kentucky.  These end-users included millers, maltsters, bakers, brewers, and distillers.  From these 2019-2020 interviews, five themes arose:

1.) The strongest demand is from bakers and distillers, however emerging enterprises in both milling and malting will demand more specialty small grains soon,

2.) Grain quality traits must be met and are more stringent and less flexible than commodity grains,

3.) On-farm storage will be required to allow for just-in-time delivery to the processor or value-adders,

4.) Flavor profiles of the grains are important so variety selection will encompass more than yield and disease resistant characteristics,

5.) All stakeholders valued both the professional and interpersonal relationships with farmers and suppliers.  These relationships build a story that helps brand products and link the product back to Kentucky farms and their sustainable practices.

In addition to conducting interviews, we hosted the inaugural Southeastern Grain Gathering on September 15-16, 2019 in Lexington, KY.  This event brought together over 150 farmers, millers, bakers, chefs, researchers, maltsters, brewers, distillers, and consumers to build a community and conversation around specialty small grain value chains in the region.  This event was inspired by the work on a recently funded Southern SARE Research and Education Grant and made possible by all of the event sponsors, participating staff and students throughout UK CAFÉ, and many local farmers and chefs. This event was the first step at building our local value chains by providing networking opportunities and linking key stakeholders along the value chain.  Hands-on baking demonstrations and classes, value chain panel discussions, and great food and beverages highlighted the two-day gathering.  This event allowed us to foster new relationships along the value change with growers, processors, and end-users.  Two examples of this include (1) a farmer partner in KY produced Edison hard white spring wheat in response to a bakers request and now the wheat is being sold to artisan bakers in KY, OH, and TN; (2) an artisan miller displayed a stone mill at the grain gathering and was able to link the miller to an OH baker that was interested in a mill, and now the mill is established in the OH bakery.