When baker Christie Rich first heard about Winter Langin, she immediately wanted to use it for bread and pastries. The hard red winter wheat was enticing not only because it was specifically developed to grow in Colorado’s increasingly arid climate, but because she could source it from a farmer in Weld County, just 25 miles from her Fort Collins bakery, The Bread Chic.
“As a baker, I use all organic, and I try to use all local whenever possible. That seemed like a great way to do that,” she said.
But first, Rich had to find a way to mill the grain into flour. She considered doing it herself, but was too busy opening a second location — and baking at the first. That’s about the time she found Dry Storage, a Boulder-based mill on a mission to make locally grown grains more accessible to culinary minds in Colorado.
Opened in 2019, Dry Storage is the brainchild of Kelly Whitaker, one of the state’s most decorated chefs and hospitality professionals, having been recognized by both the James Beard Foundation and Michelin in recent years. Originally, Whitaker opened the mill to centralize bread and pasta-making for his own restaurants, including Basta in Boulder and two-Michelin-starred The Wolf’s Tailor in Denver.
But Dry Storage has since grown to support a network of local farms using sustainable and regenerative practices, and to supply dozens of local kitchens with heirloom flours –
Colorado barley farmers aim to brew a sustainable future with novel grains
According to Emily Philpott, CEO and board chair of Dry Storage, the company’s mission starts at the ground level, literally. “We’re really involved and focused on scaling the Colorado regional grain economy in a way that’s good for farmers, amazing for the soils and great for our communities,” she said.
Equally as important, however, is making sure there’s a market for heirloom and climate-sustainable grains. With its flour mill in Boulder, Dry Storage acts as a sort of intermediary in the supply chain, contracting grains and turning them into ready-made products for bakeries and restaurants. Those retail establishments, in turn, act as showrooms for local agriculture and make the case to Colorado consumers for keeping dollars in the local economy.
“Our chefs – you know, we have the Michelin chefs, the James Beard chefs – having them bring these single varietals forward in a way to demonstrate flavor and texture and performance, really highlights the heirloom nature of it and the culture each grain brings,” Philpott said.
Additionally, Dry Storage also runs its own bakery and cafe in Boulder that offers a taste of the local terroir right at its source. The company even sells bags of flour directly to consumers for use in their home kitchens.
The timing appears to be right for this idea. Philpott said Dry Storage plans to double the number of acres for its grain contracts in 2026 to meet demand from its growing partnerships with cottage bakers, manufacturing companies and other flour mills throughout the country.
“Top of mind for everyone right now is fixing the health of our food, where it comes from and also the supply chain,” Philpott said. “I also think people in the space are just really excited about doing right by the planet and the farmers.”
Sowing the seeds of the movement
About eight years ago, Michael Jones and his wife Sarah moved back to his family’s multigenerational farm in the San Luis Valley in hopes they could reinvigorate the business. Located in Hooper, Jones Farms Organics primarily produces potatoes, a crop that requires rotating the fields every year because of how disruptive the growing and harvesting process is to the soil.
The Joneses adhere to a strategic, synergistic crop rotation that seeks to minimize or eliminate tillage in its plots where they aren’t planting potatoes, which helps replenish nutrients in the soil and prevent wind erosion. Michael and Sarah thought that if they could find alternative and specialty grains to fit into that rotation, perhaps they could also generate additional revenue.
The couple began by calling chefs on the Front Range, where they previously lived, to see if anyone would be interested in heirloom grains. One of the first people to return their call was Whitaker, Michael said. Together, the chef and farmers decided to plant about 30 acres of novel wheat varieties — White Sonora, Rogue de Bordeaux and Turkey Red — that they thought might do well in the valley.
“When we first started, we had three tote bags of 2,000 pounds each that we had kind of coordinated together that showed up from various corners of the southwest,” Michael said. “It was definitely a ‘let’s put some seeds in the ground and see how it goes’ sort of thing.”
Michael described that inaugural season as “an adventure,” but ultimately the White Sonora and Rogue de Bordeaux wheats thrived – and laid the foundation for how Dry Storage would work with other growers in the state.
Dry Storage now works with 11 local producers to cultivate five different types of wheat – White Sonora, Rogue de Bordeaux, Yecora Rojo, India Jammu and Winter Langin – as well as spelt and rye. In 2025, the company contracted 1,000 acres of grain, up from just 240 acres the year prior. In 2026, it expects to double production to 2,000 acres, Philpott said.
Dry Storage incentivizes farmers by allowing them to buy seed on credit and also commits to buy the harvest at more than double the market rate. That way, if there’s a problem with the crop, the farmer isn’t on the hook for the cost with nothing to sell, Philpott said. As an added bonus, the company will also bring agronomists to its partner farms so producers can learn other ways to improve their soil health.
Small changes can snowball into big results, Michael Jones said, whether that’s shifting how or what you farm. He sees Dry Storage’s work as a positive step in reinventing both the supply chain and consumer perceptions.
“People have moved so far from having real knowledge as far as what’s in their flour bag – it is a faceless, nameless commodity that is basically free in the grocery store. This whole effort was kind of trying to put that single origin, single lot varietal spin on a product that people, I would say, have taken for granted for a long time,” he said.
That’s part of the reason Dry Storage pays farmers what it believes to be the true cost of an artisan product, Philpott said. She likened it to paying for single-origin coffee versus bulk diner brew. While some of that cost may trickle down to the consumer, the flour itself is a tiny fraction of the cost of a dish and likely not driving higher prices for dining out.
“We’re not selling an anonymous commodity. We’re selling ingredient-grade flour with identity, provenance, and purpose,” she said. “That unlocks value the commodity system ignores.”
Milling for flavor and nutrition
After harvest season, the grains make their way to Dry Storage’s facility in Boulder, a modest 1,500-square-foot space equipped with a 36-inch stone mill. Milling is something of an art here: The process is cooler and slower than modern industrial milling, so as to maintain the nutritional value and flavor of each grain.
Several of Dry Storage’s offerings are whole wheat flours, meaning they retain every part of the grain, including the bran, the outermost layer of a wheat berry, and the germ, the embryo of the wheat berry. Sometimes, the bran and germ may be less desirable from a production standpoint because they can affect the structure and texture of doughs. However, they contain vitamins, minerals and fiber that make the grains more nutritious and, some would argue, more delicious.
Still, whole grains don’t work in every culinary scenario. To accommodate chefs’ and bakers’ needs, Dry Storage offers certain varietals with an 80% to 85% extraction rate – meaning it removes 15% to 20% of the bran and other material – to make them more functional.
“With our stone mills, we are able to mill the entire wheat berry and sift from that, keeping all the nutrients co-mingled with each other in the process, as opposed to the roller mill way of flaking off the germ and the bran and only milling the endosperm,” Philpott said.
With the understanding that specialty grains are usually just a portion of any given recipe, Dry Storage also developed its own “functional flour” blend to provide something akin to an all-purpose pantry staple. It outsources production of that product to Central Milling in Utah, since Dry Storage’s mill is currently better suited to produce single varietal flours versus blends, Philpott said. The functional flour is designed to “aid in working with our stone-milled flours, which behave differently than traditional white flour,” per the website.
Today, Dry Storage has more than 100 bakers, chefs and other wholesale clients using its products, Philpott said.
The proof is in the dough
Zach Martinucci, founder and CEO at Rebel Bread in Denver, uses that functional flour in everything he bakes. Originally, Martinucci sourced Dry Storage products because he wanted to “support sustainability and local economies and be closer to our ingredients and the producers.” But he quickly realized numerous other benefits. The proof was in the dough, so to speak.
“The flavor of everything is so much better,” Martinucci said. “It is both bolder and more pronounced in general, as well as more nuanced. I don’t think it’s as specific as wine or chocolate where you can pull out all the individual notes, but there is definitely flavor variety among different kinds of flours that we’re excited to play with.”
One of Martinucci’s favorites is Rogue de Bordeaux, which accounts for about 10% to 15% of Rebel Bread’s sourdough formula. The flour has a baking spice note to it that Martinucci never quite noticed until he used it to make pasta at home. “But I recognize it as like the Rebel sourdough signature tasting note as well, especially since it shows up in everything we make,” he said.
Rich at The Bread Chic, too, said that the Winter Langin wheat adds depth of flavor to her sourdough loaves and baguettes. Though the flour comes at a premium price point, Rich said it’s worth it because she values supporting her local farmers. She will continue to do so as she prepares to open a third location in Fort Collins called Rise and Vines, which will serve The Bread Chic’s pastries and sandwiches served on house-made bread.
Beyond flavor, Martinucci said that since he switched to using Dry Storage flour in 2023, he’s noticed how the freshness of the flour impacts the quality of the baked goods.
“The flour itself, having been grown and milled more recently, is quite fresher. These whole grains retain a lot more moisture so we can add more moisture to the dough which creates just like a fresher, more moist product,” he said. “We’re finding that our products stay fresher longer, taste better for longer and we have less waste because of it.”
Right now, most companies are making an ethical decision to support regenerative agriculture and the local grain economy. While still niche, Philpott sees it becoming more mainstream, especially among the types of manufacturers that sell goods in Whole Foods. She expects it will become a major marketing point soon, maybe even in the next couple years.
“We’re really excited to make regenerative grains the new norm in the Mountain West. I think grain is to Colorado as oranges are to Florida and so we really want people to think of us that way,” Philpott said.