Grains of Wisdom: A Conversation with Andrea Crawford of Roan Mills Bakery

Join host Paul Ward as he embarks on an enlightening journey into the world of sustainable agriculture in the heart of California. In this captivating episode of “Farm Talk,” Paul sits down with the visionary Andrea Crawford, the founder and driving force behind Roan Mills Bakery and Kenter Canyon Farms, nestled in the scenic landscapes of Fillmore, CA.

Andrea Crawford is not your average farmer; she’s a pioneer in the realm of regenerative farming practices and heirloom grain cultivation. Her passion for preserving heritage grains and reviving traditional milling techniques has made her a beacon of inspiration for both aspiring farmers and food enthusiasts alike.

Tune in to discover how Andrea’s dedication to biodiversity, soil health, and responsible farming methods is shaping the future of food production in California. Paul and Andrea delve into her journey, from her initial forays into farming to her successful establishment of Roan Mills, which has become a celebrated hub for artisanal grain milling and heirloom grain production.

Throughout the episode, you’ll learn about:

• 1. The Roan Mills story: Explore Andrea’s profound connection to the land and her commitment to sustainable agriculture.
• 2. Heritage grains and their significance: Discover the importance of preserving ancient grain varieties and the impact they have on our diets and ecosystems.
• 3. Regenerative farming practices: Gain insights into the innovative techniques and philosophies that Roan Mills employs to foster biodiversity and soil health.
• 4. Milling traditions: Dive into the fascinating world of stone milling, its historical significance, and the unique flavor profiles it imparts to Roan Mills’ products.
• 5. Community and collaboration: Learn about Andrea’s efforts to build a strong farming community and her collaborations with local chefs, bakers, and artisans who share her passion for quality ingredients.

This episode of “Farm Talk” is a testament to the power of sustainable farming, the importance of preserving agricultural heritage, and the dedication of individuals like Andrea Crawford in shaping a more responsible and flavorful future. Don’t miss this engaging conversation between Paul Ward and Andrea Crawford as they explore the roots and future of Roan Mills.

Watch the full episode on Paul’s YouTube Channel

0:00 Introduction to show and to Andrea Crawford
0:22 The Farmer, Miller, Baker and Pasta Maker
0:58 The beginnings: A Backyard Gardener
1:48 How Andrea transitioned to a baker
3:04 How Chez Pannise Restaurant and Alice Waters fit into Andrea’s story
4:34 Andrea’s Ah-Ha moment
6:59 Wolfgang Puck backs Andrea’s idea
7:42 Andrea literally sails from Berkeley down to LA
8:42 Andrea makes the cover of the Sunday LA Times
10:38 Andrea is charmed by Larry Silverton to stick around
12:14 Is Andrea still maintaining the garden(s)?
13:15 The transition to the urban farming business and Kenter Canyon Farms
15:37 Andrea and her husband buy the ranch
16:17 Are they organic?
16:47 The transition to a bakery
17:43 Andrea starts milling her own grain
19:33 The operation is still out of Andrea’s kitchen
20:42 After the ground squirrels got cocky, the professionals are brought in and production multiplied
21:42 How they got into the wheat business
22:17 Andrea starts baking
24:19 Whole Foods and Farmers’ Markets change the game
26:35 A broad inventory, including pastas
27:46 What Farmers’ markets you can find Roan Mills Farms products at
28:10 Roan Mills Bakery days and hours of operation and what visitors can expect to find there
31:04 Roan Mills website
31:34 Andrea feeds the hungry with leftovers
32:10 Compostable Cellophane
32:49 Andrea explains the farm being regenerative”
34:36 The menus change with the seasons and availability of what’s farmed
35:17 Where does the name Roan Mills come from
36:07 What’s next for Andrea and Roan Mills
37:15 Andrea explains what working for them looks like and how it keeps morale up
38:19 Thank you to our sponsor: Opus Escrow

Related Episodes:

Organic & Sustainable Hop Farming in Fillmore, CA with Mollie Engelhart
Alex Frecker and Frecker Farms: Certified Organic Row Crops
Sage Brews- A Female Owned Organic Brewery

Have ideas for future episodes? We’d love to answer your questions – leave a comment! For any home buying or home selling needs in the Ventura County area of California, please reach out to Paul@HomeAndRanchTeam.com or visit www.HomeAndRanchTeam.com

A special THANK YOU to our sponsor! Farm Talk with Paul Ward would not be possible without the support of our sponsor Opus Escrow. Supporting our sponsor ensures Farm Talk can provide listeners with the best possible episodes.

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A special THANK YOU to our sponsors! 15 Minutes with Paul Ward would not be possible without the support of our sponsors, Opus Escrow and Community West Bank. Supporting our sponsors ensures 15 Minutes with Paul Ward can provide listeners with the best possible episodes.

Paul Ward  (00:10):

Hi, it’s Paul Ward and welcome to Farm Talk. I’m very excited. Today we are in Fillmore, California and our guest is Andrea Crawford with Roan Mills Bakery. Welcome to the show.

Andrea Crawford (00:21):

Thank you for having me.

Paul Ward  (00:22):

Absolutely. And Andrea, you are the founder of Roan Mills, but you also call yourself a “Farmer, Miller, Baker, and Pasta Maker.” That’s a lot. That’s a lot of hats.

Andrea Crawford (00:34):

It’s a lot of hats. And I’m a very busy person.

Paul Ward  (00:37):

You are a very busy person.

Andrea Crawford (00:38):

My husband and I have Kenter Canyon Farms together and Roan Mills Bakery is an outcropping of that. It was an opportunity for us to showcase all the things that we grow and what you do with them. So that’s what we do there. We take the products that we raise organically here in Southern California and turn them into delicious food at Roan Mills Bakery.

Paul Ward  (00:58):

And you started as a backyard gardener?

Andrea Crawford (01:01):

I did years ago. So long ago. When I was in college, I had a class. I went to art school, so I had to come up with something right. To make a living. And I’d had this class, it was a plenaire painting class, and we would spend, you know, afternoons out at Point Reyes doing landscapes and that sort of thing. And it just so happened that everybody in the class was a backyard gardener, and the teacher was a master gardener. So, besides talking about painting, we talked a lot about gardening, and I knew nothing about it because I was a city person. But I was very interested. And so, they brought me little plants and they told me what to do. And I happened to have a little piece of a backyard at my little house in Oakland and I started a garden, and it changed my life.

Paul Ward  (01:48):

And so, you went from just kind of your own backyard, lettuces and tomatoes. And then how did that transition to being a baker? ‘Cause, you’re not…

Andrea Crawford (01:58):

Right. And it took a while to get all the way to “Baker.” But back to the very beginning, when I first started gardening in my backyard, I realized that I really liked food. Before that, I was not very interested in food. My mother was a terrible cook, and I just survived on peanut butter and apples mostly. And after I started growing my own food, I was really surprised. It actually tasted really good. And so, then I got seriously into cooking, and I got, you know, all these old gourmet magazines at the flea market for, you know, 10 cents for a whole box full. And I read through them, and I cooked everything I could find in there. And after that was done, I actually knew what I was doing. And I got a job, ‘Cause I needed a job as a student at a local gourmet deli. And that introduced me to one of the owners of Chez Pannise restaurant. Who used to come in and get sandwiches. And we became friends. And I said to him, “You know, I’m really interested in what you’re doing over there. Do you have any job openings?” And he said, “Yes, we do come by tomorrow.” And I said, “What’s the job?” And he said, “Oh, you’re gonna be the sommelier.” I didn’t even know what that was at the time. I was that innocent and young.

Paul Ward  (03:04):

Right. And for the folks listening and watching out there, what is a sommelier?

Andrea Crawford (03:08):

A sommelier is a wine expert. You know, in a restaurant. And I didn’t even drink wine. I wasn’t even 21, you know, so, but I took him seriously, and I went to the gourmet shop; had a little wine shop, and I took a crash course in wine, which was not nearly enough. And I showed up for my first day of work and they laughed, and they said, “We don’t have a sommelier.” He was just pulling my leg. So, I was really relieved. ‘Cause Like I said, I wasn’t even 21. And I knew nothing about wine. So, it was a good thing that I wasn’t gonna have to do that <laugh>. But I jumped in with both feet and, you know, was involved with a business that was really just burgeoning and, you know, everyone there was learning new things and trying new things.

Andrea Crawford (03:50):

And so that’s where all that started. And sometime after I left there, I had a big, beautiful, successful backyard garden in a friend’s backyard. And Alice Waters used to go back there all the time to raid the garden. And she was just getting famous. She had just finished her first cookbook and she said, “You know, one day I was back there, and I just had my first child, and I was trying to think about what I was gonna do now, you know, I have a kid, how am I gonna make a living?” And she shows up, she says, “I’ve just been here so many times this week, and I’m so sorry. I hope it’s okay.” And I said, “Oh, help yourself. I have way too much. I can’t possibly eat all this.” So, she said, “Well, if you have too much, you can bring it to the restaurant, and we’ll buy it.”

Andrea Crawford (04:34):

And I looked at her and I thought, ‘That’s it! I could have too much every day, that’s what I’m gonna do. ” So, I set about creating a project for Chez Pannise Restaurant. And I quickly realized that I couldn’t produce everything for the restaurant because they just need so much product, but that I could probably do the little baby lettuces in a sufficient quantity, ‘Cause I had developed a technique for growing them intensively. And so, Alice donated her backyard and I set about creating a French intensive garden there for the baby lettuces. And she used them at the restaurant, and she took them with her whenever she went anywhere to give a talk. And so, it kind of became the hallmark of what they’re doing at Chez Panisse, which is basically simple fresh food.

Paul Ward  (05:20):

You know. So, you became a farmer just by chance, just by a conversation that you had with a budding restaurateur who…

Andrea Crawford (05:28):

Oh, yeah. I was a serious gardener though. Very serious. I knew what I was doing. And in fact, what I ended up doing for them was something that most people said would never work, but I knew it would, and it did. So, I was an innovator also. You know, it was an organic farm. We collected all the compostables from the restaurant, made compost, and we had a really cool thing going. It was really, really fun. And I knew that it had legs, and I could take it to other places, but I didn’t really wanna do that in the Bay Area because I felt like it would be a drag for Alice if I took this product to every restaurant in the area. So, I hadn’t really figured out how to resolve that problem until one day I had a conversation with one of my neighbors in Berkeley, and he was a screenwriter, and he was a Mr. Mom

Andrea Crawford (06:16):

And we became friends because my husband at the time was a Mr. Mom, which was something nobody did back in those days. They were the only two in Berkeley. Very progressive city. And they were the first two and ‘Cause his wife was a screenwriter and she was busy, and I was doing this farming thing. So, they became friends, and he had screenwriter friends in LA, and he said, “You know, you should do this in LA because money grows on trees in Los Angeles and the weather’s much better.” And I thought, well, the weather is better. And so, I paid him a hundred dollars. He was an author, actually, he’s written several cookbooks. His name is Isaac Cronin. And for a hundred dollars back then, we used to pass a hundred dollars. We’d go around. That was a lot of more money back then.

Andrea Crawford (06:59):

The seventies, you know. Or the early eighties. And he wrote this letter to Wolfgang for me. And the day that Wolfgang got the letter, he called me. And this was before cell phones. He called me. I lived on a sailboat in the Berkeley marina. We had a phone call, <laugh>. I know. It’s crazy. Lived on a sailboat. ‘Cause I wanted a different life. I didn’t want a regular life. I definitely got that. So, he called me, and he said, “When are you coming?” And I said, “Well I’m gonna need some seed money to get this thing going.” And he sent me a check for $2,000. He didn’t even know me. He never met me.

Paul Ward (07:35):

Wow. Just got your letter.

Andrea Crawford (07:42):

And he got my letter. And he kind of knew I was for real. ‘Cause he’d heard about Alice, and he knew that she was getting my lettuce. And so that was enough for him. And I loved that about him. I thought that was just a great, you know, instant deal. And so, I got the check moved, sailed down there on the boat.

Paul Ward (07:53):

From Berkeley down to LA or…

Andrea Crawford (07:55):

Yeah. And you know how valets will always park the nicest cars in front of the restaurant? So, yacht clubs are kind of like that too. If you come down on a vintage boat, you know, they’ll give you a little space for that boat. And we had to be tied up to the dock ‘Cause it was a long boat. So, it was a really fun way to kind of enter into Los Angeles. And we had this backyard in Venice. We set it up exactly according to the technique that I’d developed, which was this French intensive technique.

Andrea Crawford (08:24):

And we set it up for Wolfgang. And at the time, the LA Times food editor was Ruth Reichl. So, it was a long time ago, ’85, I think. And I knew her a little bit because she was a Berkeley person and I’d known her in the Bay Area just casually. And so, she called me up and she said she wanted to do a story. And I said, “Oh yeah, sure, that’s fine.” But, you know, I’d been living a counterculture life and I’d been as off the grid as I could possibly be for most of my young adult life. And so, I didn’t really understand that this was going to be a big thing. I just figured it would be a story and that I just carry on with my life. But it turned out that I was on the cover of the magazine section of the LA Times, the Sunday LA Times.

Andrea Crawford (09:15):

This was back before it was digital. You know, people got it delivered to their house. <Laugh>. And I was completely unprepared for the response that I got. ‘Cause You know, Los Angeles is a wonderful place. People have great ideas. There are so many creatives here. People are super generous. I didn’t find that to be as true with Northern California. But when this article came out, I was inundated with mail, snail mail, because remember, this was before the internet and email. And it was people offering me their backyards. And I’m talking about people who had big backyards because, you know, there’s so much open land in Los Angeles, it’s an enormous sprawling city. People in Malibu, people in Beverly Hills, people with great big yards were saying, “Love what you’re doing, please come and take my yard and do it there.”

Andrea Crawford (10:01):

And of course, I politely thanked them, and I was not planning to take any of them up on it. But it got to be almost a full-time job just dealing with all the response that I got. And I had still planned to leave Los Angeles and go back to my situation at Berkeley. ‘Cause I had that all set up and I was comfortable there. And the people that I was friends with were like, “Yeah. Right. Uh huh.” They knew I wasn’t gonna leave. I’m still here. <Laugh>. I moved down in 1985, planning to just stay a few weeks and I’m still here. And they all knew that would happen because I had figured it out. This is the place to be, you know? Generous people. Wonderful weather. You know, I just, really loved it.

Andrea Crawford (10:38):

And I was on my way home one day from that little garden that I had created for Wolfgang. And I picked up the phone to call my husband to tell him I was on my way home so he could start dinner. ‘Cause He was still Mr. Mom. And there was someone on the other end of the phone, you know how that can happen, where you pick up the phone and it never rang, but you connected a call. And it was this, this guy named Larry Silverton, who’s Nancy Silverton’s dad. And he had read the article, and he was making an offer for his backyard in Encino. And by then I was pretty good at saying, “Thank you, but no thank you.” But he was a lawyer, and he had a gift of gab. And he, A: kept me on the phone for an hour, and B: completely charmed me.

Andrea Crawford (11:21):

And so, I agreed to go see the property. I just couldn’t believe it. He was so irresistible. So, the very next day, my husband and I drove out there and we met him. And he had this half acre backyard. And he said, “You can just have this.” He said, “You know, I’ve got this daughter, Nancy, you know, Nancy Silverton, she’s very well known.” But back then, this was a long time ago. You know, she was working at Maxwell Plum with her then boyfriend who became her husband. And she and I are roughly the same age. And so he was just, you know, basically treating me like a very good friend. You know. And I just did the math really quick in my head and I was like, can we stay? And my husband said, “Sure.” You know, ‘Cause we already had our boat here, so we had a place to live. And so, we took him up on it. And we built this beautiful French intensive garden in his backyard, which still exists actually.

Paul Ward  (12:14):

You’re not still maintaining that garden?

Andrea Crawford (12:16):

God. No, no, no. That was just for a couple of years. We did that. So, we did that. He kind of became my mentor. He would’ve his espresso and come out in the backyard and teach me about business. And this guy knew everything about businesses. It was like plugging into the Oracle or getting an M.B.A, just standing there listening to him talk about how to make leverage. My credit? Credit? I knew nothing about these things, you know? And I learned it all from him. It was just fantastic. And he really helped me get started in Los Angeles as a competent businessperson. And suggested as a lawyer that I, you know, incorporate and I do all these normal things because, you know, I would be in the food business and I could get sued and on and on and on and, taught me a lot of things. So, you know, I had a crash course and quickly turned it into a going concern, I guess is what you’d say, you know.

Paul Ward  (13:03):

So, you were providing produce to upscale restaurants. Wolfgang Puck. And you’d been doing Chez Pannise up in the Bay Area. And then how did you transition into Baker?

Andrea Crawford (13:15):

Well, that happened much, much later. What we transitioned into first was first we grew an urban farming business. And we rented land from the Department of Water and Power. And that’s where we got our Kenter Canyon Farms name from. And that was, a Kenter Canyon Farms was the, I mean Kenter Canyon was the name of the Power Lines, which started in Brentwood and ended in Tarzana.

Paul Ward  (13:36):

So that’s not a very sexy name. Like named after the power lines that you’re farming underneath.

Andrea Crawford (13:40):

Well, actually it turned out to be a pretty good name because unbeknownst to me, Kenter Canyon is actually a really upscale, beautiful secret area in Brentwood. And the people who live there guard it carefully. They do not want everyone to know. But it’s a very nice spot. It was a little bit like calling myself Beverly Hills Farms, but I didn’t know that at the time. I just took the name off the lease because Larry said I had to have a name, I had to incorporate. So, it was just a very serendipitous moment, you know, that I chose this name. And we farmed in the city, which was kind of an interesting phase actually. We did that for a long, long time. We were farming in the city. So, we would harvest, we would pack and deliver to restaurants all in the same day.

Paul Ward  (14:18):

So, you had the Encino Garden.

Andrea Crawford (14:20):

Yeah. And that was seven acres.

Paul Ward (14:22):

Oh, that’s big.

Andrea Crawford (14:22):

Yeah, it was big. That was seven acres. ‘Cause it went from the bottom of that property to the top. And the Department of Water and Power loved what we were doing. And so, for a time they weren’t charging us for the water. They would never do that now.

Paul Ward  (14:34):

Never lucky for them to do anything now.

Andrea Crawford (14:37):

Yeah. But they were lovely with us because they had, you know, for a long time they had a tradition of renting to farmers. ‘Cause that was an orange grove when we took out all the orange trees. Outta the process of taking out the orange trees, we met this guy who had farmland in Agoura Hills. And it was a big farm with water and everything. And so, we moved out to Agoura Hills and we expanded our operation, you know, and that worked pretty well for us. We were doing all the top end restaurants at the time in the eighties. There were a lot of nice restaurants. It was the junk bond time and everybody who had it, you know, every lawyer, every dentist was investing in a restaurant and they were kind of popping up like mushrooms everywhere, you know. And so, you know, I learned how to collect my money, which was a big one, you know? Because a lot of these people will just order up and then never pay. You know, thanks to Larry, I learned how to really take, you know, every step I needed to, which included sometimes sitting in their lobby with my two kids all day until they paid.

Paul Ward  (15:31):

Wow.

Andrea Crawford (15:32):

It’s like, you know, I’m not the (bad guy) here. You are. <laugh>.

Paul Ward  (15:36):

Right. Pay your bill.

Andrea Crawford (15:37):

Right. Pay your bill. But then my husband thought, you know, it might make more sense for us to actually be out in agricultural areas. And he just started looking and he’s a real estate guy, too. And we bought this ranch. This is our very first purchase. We bought this in the year 2000 and it changed everything. ‘Cause There were a lot of services out here at that time. We didn’t have big tractors, we just had small little, you know the third world kind of tractors. Very small things because we were urban farming. There wasn’t room for real equipment, you know? But once we came out here you know, we got a crash course on how to actually be a real farmer, not an urban farmer.

Paul Ward  (16:17):

Right. And you guys are organic.

Andrea Crawford (16:19):

Always been organic. And we really are organic. We’re certified. A lot of people today don’t do the certification ‘Cause there’s a lot of paperwork involved. And so, they say, “Well, we practice organically, but we’re not certified.” And that’s good enough for some, but it’s not good enough for us. So, we’re actually certified, and we are the real deal. And we are very committed to that and have been all along. I mean, we were organic long before anyone cared about it, you know.

Paul Ward  (16:47):

And how did you transition then from, I mean, you went from Urban Gardener to now we’re Ventura County based and now you’re doing all kinds of farmer’s markets and you’ve got a bakery.

Andrea Crawford (16:58):

The bakery. Yeah. You keep coming back to bakery. How did that happen? So, in in the early, I don’t know, like around 2010 or something like that, or maybe 20, I don’t know, in there somewhere. I was doing a lot of baking at home just because I was interested in myself. You know, I was just curious about baking, and I wanted good bread and, and I had kids, you know, that I was making lunches for, and I wanted them to have nutritious whole grain breads. Which they would trade at school for Lunchables, of course, you know, <laugh> because they thought real food was so boring. That’s all we get. Right. They wanted the junk until they had enough of it. And then they were like, “You know, you’re right. This is really awful.” <Laugh>. So, I was baking, and I was just really deep diving into baking.

Andrea Crawford (17:43):

And I decided just from the research and the contacts, you know, I joined a group, a meetup group called LA Bread Bakers. And that was fun because everyone in the meetup group was totally into bread. And like, we could talk all day long about it, and nobody would get bored in the course of meeting these people who were just as into it as I was. I’m ticking an even deeper dive into the whole process. I realized that I wanted to mill my own grain. And I had been on a European vacation that summer, and I had in Switzerland, I was in this old part of Switzerland. I found this wonderful mill, a little home sized mill. It was a clad and in Douglas Fir it was the most beautiful little wooden machine, and it was home sized, you know, for milling grain at home.

Andrea Crawford (18:27):

So, I got that. And I started milling my own flour right before I was starting to bake my bread. So, it was like milled in time for the process. And my bread took a huge leap forward. It was so much better.

Paul Ward (18:41):

Because your product was fresh.

Andrea Crawford (18:44):

Well, yeah. So, I realized that flour, nobody really thinks about flour. You know, they just think of it as something you take out of a bag and then it’s the ingredients you add to the flour that make all the difference. But what I discovered was that there is a difference in flour. And flour is completely underrepresented in most typical grocery stores. So, a freshly milled whole grain flour has incredible flavor and lots of different kinds of qualities, color, and smells that I never knew. So, that was very exciting for a bread nerd like me.

Andrea Crawford (19:14):

And one day, while I was, you know, putting the whole wheat into my mill, I looked at it and I realized these are seeds. Like, it took me a long time to make that connection, considering that I am a farmer and all I ever do is think about farming and food. But it was at least a year before it was tweaked that I could grow this, you know.

Paul Ward (19:33):

Interesting. And again, you’re still doing this in your kitchen?

Andrea Crawford (19:35):

I was just doing it in my kitchen. It was just for my friends and my family. I mean, I was baking a lot of bread actually, and my kids were in private schools, so we were, you know, using it for fundraisers and stuff like that. But I wasn’t taking it very seriously as a business possibility. And then we decided that we would start growing.

Andrea Crawford (19:54):

And so, my oldest son, who had a farming business, took over that ranch in Agoura that I mentioned earlier. And he agreed to plant the crop with a bunch of volunteers from the LA Bread Bakers group, the meetup group. And so, we had, you know, a fun afternoon out there throwing seed around and you know, watering it and just talking about bread. And our first crop was a complete failure because it got eaten up by what we thought were deer. But the next year we found out that it wasn’t deer. It was ground squirrels. And the ground squirrels had been very successful the first year harvesting and stashing all this grain. So, the second year they were really big and fat <laugh> and very sassy. Like, they would come out in the middle of broad daylight, reach up, grab a stock, pull it down, and start eating.

Andrea Crawford (20:42):

That’s and just look right at you. Like, try and stop me. And it was ridiculous. I mean, they completely took the whole crop for two years in a row. So, then my husband got involved. He goes, “Let me show you how to do this.” So, that year we got a professional, we got him involved, and we had a piece of land up in Hollister, you know, which is in Northern California. And it needed to rest ’cause we’d been growing arugula there for a while. And so he planted how big was it? I think it was 30 acres or somewhere around there. And of course we had a, you know, fantastic yield. We planted it the day after Thanksgiving. And by the time the field was planted, it started to rain and it rained really hard for five days. And that was the only water we gave it. We never did anything else to it. It was dry farmed and it was fabulous. I mean, we had like 80,000 pounds of wheat. Yeah. And that’s when we went into business. ‘Cause I was like, what am I gonna do with all this?

Paul Ward  (21:38):

<Laugh> Right. I mean, you had to, you had almost, you had too much for yourself at that point.

Andrea Crawford (21:42):

Yeah. A lot. Too much for myself. I mean, there’s something really incredible about standing in a field of wheat. I mean, it’s a primal feeling of you’re gonna be okay. Because, you know, you’ve got food. You know, I’ve never felt anything like that before. You know, we had this truck come in and there was just this river of grain going into the back of this truck. It was amazing. And I looked at him, I’m like, “What are we gonna do with all this?” So that’s how we got into the wheat business, you know? So

Paul Ward  (22:12):

Interesting. And so now you’ve got 80,000 pounds of…

Andrea Crawford (22:17):

Of grain Yes. Of grain. So, then we had to figure out what to do and you know, I’m a problem solver. And so, I started asking around to see if there were any commercial bakeries in LA that would rent me oven space.  And I met this great guy, Sal Calderone, who’s the executive chef now for the Erewhon Group. And Sal had a heart of gold. His father had been a baker. He is from New York. He loved what we were doing. So, he said, “Yes, between these hours you can come in and you can bake.” And so, I organized with the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market on Wednesdays to see if they would give us a space. You know, we were already in there for our lettuces and herbs, but this was a new product. And it was all made from stuff from our farm, you know, and was it gonna be okay? And they weren’t thrilled. So, in September or October of 2013, we launched in that farmer’s market.

Paul Ward  (23:13):

And were you experimenting with different breads at that time?

Andrea Crawford (23:16):

We were doing a whole wheat sourdough, and we had like three or four different varieties. We also made rye bread ’cause we had some rye. But you know, we just had a few products. And I had this wonderful young baker who was trained in San Francisco, who now has his own bakery up in the Sacramento area. What is his name? Ken Curran, and his bakery is Camina now. But before then, he was just a young guy looking for adventure, and ours was an adventure that he liked, and he baked. And it was a nightmare in that bakery. We would get in there, and it was before the cleaners got there, and it was right before their shift started, like about four hours before their shift started. We had a really narrow window and he just had to make it work. And he did. It was amazing. I mean, I would drive down, pick up the bread, take it to the market, sell it. . .

Paul Ward (24:06):

And we would do that yourself?

Andrea Crawford (24:06):

Yeah. I sell, oh yeah, I did it. Yeah. I had some help at the market, but yeah, it was crazy. But it was fun. You know, we were bringing nutritious, delicious products to the market and people loved it.

Paul Ward  (24:19):

And now you’ve got Roan Mills in Fillmore, and you’re hustle-bustle and you’re multiple farmer’s markets.

Andrea Crawford (24:26):

So, we started in 2013 and we grew the business. Whole Foods really liked the product. And we were in with them anyway, with our lettuce and herbs, and they wanted to bring the bread into the stores. So based on that agreement, which was just a handshake agreement that we made with them, this was before Amazon was a part of it. And you could do handshake agreements with Whole Foods <laugh>. So, we had that, all this property that we had bought in Fillmore, all these different buildings. And the one that you see now, that’s a 6,000 square foot building. So we set that up to be a wholesale bakery with the idea that we would supply as many of the Southern Pacific stores as we could. It wouldn’t be all of them, because even a bakery that size wouldn’t be enough for all those stores.

Andrea Crawford (25:08):

They have a lot of stores and they had more in the pipeline, but we would do what we could, you know, ’cause our goal has always been to be local. And Fillmore required that a third of it be retail. So, we were only open one day a week for retail. We assumed incorrectly that we wouldn’t have any interest in Fillmore, but we were completely wrong about that. Farmer’s market customers knew what we were doing. And so, they would make pilgrimages up from LA you know, occasionally. And after, I don’t know, a year and a half of trying to make the wholesale thing work, we dropped that because we just couldn’t make enough money doing it. You know, nobody wants to pay for bread on the wholesale level. It’s just worth nothing.

Andrea Crawford (25:48):

And it was too much hustle and bustle. It was driving my staff nuts. They weren’t getting any sleep. We had a 24- hour schedule. It was just too crazy. A lot of bakeries have that and it’s not sustainable. So now we are focused just only on retail. We no longer have a night shift. So, our schedule is actually pretty reasonable. My mixer starts at 4:00 AM, it’s the earliest start time, and most of them start at eight. And they work an 8-hour day. So, everyone can live with that. But before we had like, you know, crazy start time, 7:30 PM to 3:30 in the morning, 10 hour shifts. It was too much. So now we, yeah. We’ve had it dialed back to what people can actually live with and us working, you know, we’re doing retail.

Paul Ward  (26:35):

And your inventory is broad. I mean, you’ve got pastas.

Andrea Crawford (26:40):

Yeah. We make all that. Yeah. Yeah. We make pasta. We make as much out of flour as you can make. So, pasta was a natural, you know, segue for us. And then we have all the products at the farm. So, we’re making, you know, sauces for the sauce, for the pasta. And we make ravioli, and we have, of course sandwiches, and we make all the sauces for that and so, you know, it’s just like an opportunity for my devotion to food, to have an opportunity to be expressed. And we’re bringing a very high level of product to people. It’s mostly all organic. All the produce in fruit is organic; the flour is organic. And it’s exciting. You know, people are responding to it. “This tastes good,” for starters. So, we’ve tried to keep our pricing accessible so that it’s not just like a super expensive place. Some people do find that expensive, but I can tell you from what we put into it in terms of labor and ingredients, our pricing is modest. You know, it’s partly just because we want this business to exist. And you know, we have Kenter Canyon Farms that makes it all possible.

Paul Ward  (27:46):

You know. And for folks that are in Southern California, what farmer’s markets do you branch out to weekly?

Andrea Crawford (27:53):

We are, every weekend. We’re in the Santa Barbara Saturday market and the Goleta market on Sunday. And in Los Angeles, we’re at the Wednesday market in Santa Monica. And on Saturday in Santa Monica and on Sunday we are in Hollywood and Atwater Village.

Paul Ward  (28:08):

Okay.

Andrea Crawford (28:09):

So those markets,

Paul Ward  (28:10):

And then of course for Ventura County folks, they could just come out to (the bakery).

Andrea Crawford (28:12):

They have to come to the bakery, Roan Mills bakery, and we’re up on Wednesday through Saturday. So, they have a lot of opportunities to do that. And at the store, there are lots of other things that you can buy that we don’t send to farmer’s markets for various reasons. So, we opened the store I guess in September. It’ll be six years ago. And we are now open four days a week. We’re open Wednesday through Saturday from 8AM until 3PM. And we have when you walk into the store, you kind of see all of the things that we do, which basically it’s a showcase for what we grow at Kenter Canyon Farms. So, we have a beautiful produce table. 90% of what’s on that table is from our farms. There is stuff from other people’s farms.

Andrea Crawford (28:51):

And also, we buy some organic commercial stuff from a downtown outfit, like mushrooms and things that we don’t grow. But these are all products that we used in our cooking in the back. And so, we make that available to our customers as well, and so it’s like a little tiny farmer’s market, you know. We also buy things specifically for that. Like, you know, sometimes, you know, I’ll buy melons or something, which we’re not actually using in the back, but they’re in season. And so, we have ’em there. But then you know, we have a whole lot of pastries. Pastries are probably the biggest thing that we do now because people love sugar, you know, so we have cookies and we have all kinds of laminated goods, Danish banana bread, pudding all these things which pair nicely with the hot beverage program that we have.

Andrea Crawford (29:42):

You know, we have an espresso machine. And we make a lot of creative drinks. And also, some tea drinks. And right now we’re doing tests for the fall with apple juice and mulling spices. We have incredibly creative baristas at our place. And then we have a whole freezer section where we have things like chicken pot pies and vegetarian versions of that made with mushrooms. We have ravioli, all kinds of sauces for the pastas. This week I’m making Tex, Cali-Mex pie that’s actually got Fritos in it, like a Frito pie which most people think is a little out of character, but Fritos are just made from three ingredients, corn, salt, and yes. Corn, salt, and water. Yeah. As junk food goes.

Paul Ward  (30:32):

It’s one of the better. <laugh>

Andrea Crawford (30:35):

Not bad. They’re probably a little salty. But in Texas there’s this whole thing, you know what a Frito pie is like in its simplest form. They zip open the bag of Fritos and they put chili, Hormel chili on top with little cheese and some chopped onions, and that’s it. Little sour cream. And that’s the simplest form, but of course, you know, it’s gone through various permutations. And mine is the California version, which is in a pie shell. And a little more refined.

Paul Ward  (31:02):

Very fun.

Andrea Crawford (31:03):

Yeah, it’s super fun.

Paul Ward  (31:04):

Different days. Baking different goods, I would assume. I mean, you can’t be doing it all the time.

Andrea Crawford (31:10):

Yeah. We do most of it all the time, actually. I mean, not always the exact same things, but we always have sandwiches, and we always have soup in the freezer, and we always have pies and quiches and, yeah.

Paul Ward  (31:21):

And do you have a website that folks can visit?

Andrea Crawford (31:23):

We do roanmills.com and we have a pre-order option there.

Paul Ward (31:26):

Oh, you do?

Andrea Crawford (31:26):

Yeah. You can pre-order, which is a good thing to do if you can’t get there till afternoon. ‘Cause we aim to sell out.

Paul Ward  (31:33):

Okay.

Andrea Crawford (31:34):

So, in the late afternoon it’s, there’s still good stuff, but it might not be what you want. So, at the end of our sales days we donate leftover products to feed the hungry. And we’re very lucky because in Fillmore we have a group of friars who are donating, who are devoted to caring for the sick and poor in Los Angeles. And so, they have a lot of opportunities to donate food. And so, they come every week and collect leftover bread and they make sure that the needy get it, which makes me happy because it’s quality food and we don’t wanna waste it.

Paul Ward  (32:10):

And I also read that you’re big into recycling with cellophane wrap that can actually go into the compost bin.

Andrea Crawford (32:17):

Yeah. It’s real cellophane and it can be composted. We use that for the cookies and the granola. Yeah. And that has been getting tricky to get, because the company that makes that, it’s called Pascol in Oregon. It’s having trouble getting that material. So, I don’t know if those days are coming to an end or what.

Paul Ward  (32:32):

Hmm. You’d think it would be getting even bigger.

Andrea Crawford (32:36):

Not. It’s a supply chain issue and I don’t know the details, but that’s a sad little thing that’s happening. We may be losing that little thing, but we’ve done that for a long, long time. Yeah. We’ve been trying to, you know, do a good job of stewardship.

Paul Ward  (32:49):

Sure. And the farm is regenerative.

Andrea Crawford (32:52):

Yes. That is one of those undefinable terms. Regenerative is being thrown around a lot lately. It really makes my husband very annoyed because regenerative can mean whatever you want it to mean, and people think it’s so good. But what we are is we’re just very serious stewards of the earth. And, you know, we are actually organic. We do not cheat, and we keep all the paperwork together, which a lot of people don’t do because they can’t handle the paperwork. And, you know, we recycle as much as we can. We do not raise animals on this farm, because of the food safety issues, you know, ’cause we are selling a raw product, salad. And so, to stay in compliance with food safety, we can’t do that. And I know regenerative farmers like to have animals. So, we’re not gonna do that.

Paul Ward  (33:38):

Makes a natural fertilizer.

Andrea Crawford (33:39):

Right. But that has to be composted. Yeah. So, you know, we buy the inputs from people who compost has to be sterilized to be food safe. So, we can’t do that on the scale that we work. It would have to be a whole separate business. So, we purchase those things. But we do a lot of green manuring, which, you know, is cover cropping and then you disk that into the soil and stuff. On this farm here, we supply, this is the first farm we bought out in Ventura County. And a lot of the items that we grow are represented here. All the citrus and berries are behind us here. This is all seasonal stuff, you know, so right now we’re harvesting a lot of berries. Some of them were freezing, so we’ll have them for use later in the year. In the back of the property, we have a stone fruit orchard, which is mostly harvested by now. But we got a lot of beautiful peaches and apricots from there and plums earlier this year, which are all in our pies now.

Paul Ward  (34:36):

I would imagine your menus change, right, throughout the year based on that.

Andrea Crawford (34:40):

Yeah. The pies will reflect the season. So, we’re getting into the fall now and we’ll be out of stone fruit shortly. So, we do apple year round. But we’ll have pumpkin pies soon and we’ll have up pecan pies. That’s kind of a winter thing. And then sometimes we do things like lemon meringue in the winter because citrus is a winter crop. So, and we do key lime pies in the winter.

Paul Ward  (35:05):

I’m getting hungry.

Andrea Crawford (35:06):

I know. I miss those pies. That’s the nice thing about working seasonally is that you really look forward to it when it’s there, you know? So the lemon meringue pie is my favorite. ‘Cause I get to use the torch on the meringue and make it all brown. That’s

Paul Ward  (35:17):

One of my favorites. <Laugh>. Yeah. Where did the name Roan Mills come from?

Andrea Crawford (35:21):

Well, Roan Mills- Roan is actually a word. It refers to a color breed for horses, but it has nothing to do with that. Roan is a mashup of my name and my husband’s name. He’s the “Ro-” and I’m the -“an,” Roan. He came up with that, of course. He’s first, “Ro-” I said, how about “Anro?”? But he liked Roan better, so <laugh>, so that’s where we got the name. And that was kind of fun. We really spent a lot of time trying to think about the name. It’s sort of like naming a kid, you know? You have children, you’re throwing names back and forth. And so Roan, just was the one name we could agree on. And that’s where we got it from. And people mispronounce it constantly.

Paul Ward  (36:01):

Sure, “Ro-Anne.”

Andrea Crawford (36:02):

“Ro-Anne,” I know. But then I would have to have another N and an E. But, you know, my dad was an English major, so I know this.

Paul Ward  (36:07):

<Laugh> <laugh>. So what’s next for you and the bakery? I mean, you’ve got one on your plate. Farmer, Miller Baker, Pasta Maker.

Andrea Crawford (36:16):

Yeah. I think I’m just gonna stop here and keep doing this for a while. I am in the process now of really trying to create a sustainable workforce, because, you know, the restaurant business has just been gutted by COVID. Just everything is just so out of whack. And, you know, we’re trying to find a balance where we can, you know, give people a career. And give them hours that are sustainable. And so right now, that’s my biggest focus. I mean, we have a lot of products and I’m always making new products. And I’ve got pretty good staff right now that I really value. And so, we’re hoping to continue doing what we’re doing. The only way we can do that is really to cultivate a very strong workforce within our community at Roan Mills. And if we can do that, we’ll stick around, you know. But it’s a challenge. It’s an incredible challenge finding people who will still work in hospitality.

Paul Ward  (37:12):

Yeah, I mean, the worst is to train somebody then they leave.

Andrea Crawford (37:15):

Yeah. I mean, we’ve had a very, very tough time finding people. Most of the people who left the restaurant business probably aren’t gonna come back, is my guess. You know, and people who’ve gone to the Culinary Institute, you know, have found the hard way that it’s just a lot of hours of work and the compensation, if you, even if you’re on a good salary, pretty much dwindles when you put in those long days, day after day after day. So we’re trying to find that balance, you know, where we can pay people a substantial living wage and keep their work week to around 40 hours or a little less and give them a week off paid if they’ve been with us long enough. You know, just kind of find that place where people feel like they’re getting; ‘Cause they’re spending their life there, you know, a big chunk of it. Right. And so there’s a lot of work being done in that area right now, which is, you know, very challenging.

Paul Ward  (38:05):

Well, it’s a good worthy cause.

Andrea Crawford (38:07):

It is. Yeah. It is. And I’m enjoying it. And you know, I’m learning it as I go along too. You know.

Paul Ward  (38:13):

Well, Andrea Crawford, thank you so much for being our guest on this edition of Farm Talk.

Andrea Crawford (38:17):

Well, thank you for having me.

Paul Ward  (38:19):

Absolutely. Glad to be here. We’ve loved having you. And of course, we wanna thank our sponsor, Opus Escrow. And be sure to tune in next time for the next edition of Farm Talk.