The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Day trip to Keith Giusto Bakery Supply (Central Milling)

cranbo's picture
cranbo

Day trip to Keith Giusto Bakery Supply (Central Milling)

Happened to be in the Bay Area after Christmas this year for a vacation, and was passing through Petaluma on a weekday, so decided to swing by Keith Giusto Bakery Supply, which is tucked into a corner of an industrial park in Petaluma.

They have a neat, warm little consumer sales and reception area where they have 5lb individually bagged organic and non-organic Central Milling flours, and other home-baking supplies like bannetons, scrapers, buckets, bowls, baking books, and even a line of gluten-free baking mixes. So fun to explore the options, I felt like a kid in a candy store!

I was busy picking some stuff out when a nice young curly-haired gentleman with a friendly grin and enthusiastic personality struck up a conversation about where we were travelling from, how I found out about the place, etc. Lon (Gallardo) introduced himself as the main sales rep for the company; IIRC he's been working there for 8 months and knows Nicky (Giusto) from college. We talked a bit about the Giusto family and how Keith and Nicky Guisto are associated only with Central Milling and separate from the part of the family that produces Giusto's Vita Grain, and how getting Central Milling flour in LA is easier using the LA Bread Bakers meetup for group buys (flat rate shipping of a pallet i.e., fifty 50lb bags to Los Angeles area is only about $110).

Lon then asked us whether we would want to take a tour of the warehouse.

Oh heck yes we would!  

The warehouse is big, tons of flour sacks in pallets stacked neatly with several rows of different kinds of flours and other baking ingredients (they sell whole grain berries, sugar, baking powder, and now even chocolate!) Was cold in the warehouse (high's in the mid 50's in the bay area this week), and found out that it's not air conditioned, and apparently even during the summer it never gets very warm. 

Here is all my "loot": I'm excited to try their spelt, type 70 and 85 flours, california stone-ground wheat, and 9 grain cereal (which will soon be discontinued in lieu of the 6-grain cereal blend they already sell). 

flours 

Some things I learned:

They are the primary distribution point of Central Milling flour. Their primary mill is in Utah, but they have several mills. They have other distribution points thru other bakery supply providers throughout the US, but most do not carry the full Central Milling product line. They even distribute from their Petaluma location to as far as Texas.

Their flours and grains come from all over the country, wherever is necessary to get the right specifications of product.

They have a spooky guard for their warehouse:

They also have other non-organic commercial products (Red Rose brand) which are used by many commercial customers; it's not a brand that's commonly available for retail, but it's a really old brand (I believe Lon said it dates back to the 19th century). This brand is not organic (like Central Milling) and is significantly less expensive (maybe 1/2 the price of the Central Milling version), but are milled to very similar specifications (they have a type 70, type 85, and others in this brand). It's a reminder of the extra cost involved in organic certification, procuring and maintaining organic product.

They have special equipment to re-package the bulk product into 5lb bags to maintain the organic requirements, which is great for a home baker/hobbyist like me. Easy to spend $6-8 for a bag and try something new before committing to 50lbs. Ended up buying a 50lb bag of the Bakers Craft Plus (which is a malted flour). They sell malted & unmalted versions of a number of their most popular flours. 

Maintaining an organically certified warehouse requires special procedures including off-loading the many pallets of flour, checking for pests/rodents, and vacuuming/cleaning the entire shelving area regularly (once a month I think?) That seemed like an incredible amount of work! 

Confirmed that both Acme, Tartine and Josey Baker use Central Milling flours (Tartine supposedly uses 50/50 of organic and non-organic flour in their breads). 

They are building a new test kitchen, to ensure that the can continue to test products. Half will be set up for hobbyist baking classes, and the other half will be set up for commercial production testing. I was drooling over the steam injection deck ovens and the mixing gear. This is the current test kitchen:

As part of their service to commercial customers, they offer formula troubleshooting to ensure that customers are getting the right product, and that it's working as expected.

Nicky Giusto is a competitive baker who is getting ready to compete for Team USA in the Coupe de Monde Boulangerie competition. Nicky wasn't there (he is in training with Team USA, they meet all over the country to train) but he had done a test bake the day before with lots of baguettes, epis, and other pretty decorative loaves. The breads were day-old and Lon offered for us to take what we wanted. The two baguettes we grabbed were phenomenal. I have never had baguettes that had such a creamy, translucent, custardy and open crumb. Even the two day-old baguettes sitting in my warm truck were like a sweet, wheaty, toasty perfume that filled the air after only a couple of minutes. I wish I took a photo of the crumb. 

Lon and everybody at Keith Giusto's Bakery Supply made it a really fun and informative visit, got to leave with some great breads and fun memories. Can't wait to start baking! 

Comments

Floydm's picture
Floydm

Neat. Thanks for sharing.

cranbo's picture
cranbo

Thanks Floyd, my pleasure :) Happy New Year!

nmygarden's picture
nmygarden

So much to see and learn. And you got yourself some new products to try out. Yea! We'll  hope to hear and see more from you soon.

Happy baking in 2016!

cranbo's picture
cranbo

Thanks nmygarden, I hope I'll have some other fun tours planned in the future. Next step is maybe a LA BreadBakers Meetup. 

TomK's picture
TomK

I'm so lucky that my wife works around the corner from there. Free delivery rocks!

I'll need to run up there on a day off though, I didn't get a tour offer before.

Tom

cranbo's picture
cranbo

Hi TomK, ah I'm jealous. Wish I lived that close! :) They have a great selection of flours, grains and other baking supplies. 

You may want to call ahead to see if someone can give you a tour of the warehouse. I don't think they're exactly set up for it; I got the feeling that I caught them at a slow holiday time (just starting to pick the deliveries for the week), so it worked out well. But they did seem really friendly about it, so it may not even be an issue. 

baybakin's picture
baybakin

Wonderful! I'm sure you'll love the type 70, for the longest time it was my go-to for pretty much all my breads (I get it malted), makes a wonderful replacement for standard bread flour.

cranbo's picture
cranbo

Thanks, can't wait to try it. I've been hoping to play around with some more Euro-style flours and with spelt too. 

joann1536's picture
joann1536

That does it, I'm going to make a drive up there!  I've bought Central Milling's AP at Costco, but haven't seen it lately.  Have placed some large orders at King Arthur when they offer free shipping, but then that becomes a storage problem for me.  It'll be a good and productive trip, even if I don't get a tour!

cranbo's picture
cranbo

It's worth it. Although it may test your self-control to see all those wonderful products!