ALL JEFF ZIMMERMAN wanted was a local farmer to work with him, growing 30 acres of ancient grains. At the time, Zimmerman had been working for CVS Health as a pro- cess manager and before that as a quality systems manager for Intel. For three years Zimmerman spoke with farmers and pitched his idea of growing ancient and heritage grains and reviving the old Hayden Flour Mill in Queen Creek, Ariz. One day, out of desperation but with a glimmer of hope, he approached a friend from college, Steve Sossaman, whose family homesteaded there in 1919. Sossaman listened to his friend who was visibly worn from rejection after rejection, and simply asked “how much land do you think you need?” Thirty acres, said Zimmerman. Sossaman was skeptical at the time but willing to give it a try; it was only 30 acres. After all, he farms year-round, and his family through the years had grown everything from vegetables to cotton and corn to alfalfa. Sossaman himself had been farming for 40 years, so he was ready to try something a bit out of the ordinary. For Zimmerman and Sossaman, that was the beginning of what they will admittingly call a bleeding-edge business venture and partnership — growing wheat varieties that yield four to five times less than traditional varieties; adding food-grade processing, cleaning and sorting equipment and breathing new life into a rundown, dilapidated flour mill on the outskirts of Phoenix. Extraordinary Vision Zimmerman was focused on reviving an old flour mill that began operation in 1870, while Sossaman was focused on sourcing and learning to grow these heritage and ancient grains. For Zimmerman, it is all about bringing taste and flavor back to bread and pasta. That first year, Sossaman grew 30 acres with three differ- ent varieties of wheat: White Sonora, Red Fife and Farro. “As we did it that first year in 2011, I found that the grains came from Mesopotamia and were more than 6,000 years From Seed To Plate An unlikely partnership goes to extraordinary efforts to bring about the heritage and ancient grain movement in Arizona, adding flavor to the millennial diet. Julie Deering jdeering@issuesink.com old. The newest is from 300 years ago,” Sossaman says. “White Sonora is what the wheat wafers are made from for communion, Red Fife came from Canada and Farro is Jesus’ wheat. All these grains have these amazing histories that go with them.” But it’s not just the history that’s intriguing; flavor is the driving force. “Chefs are going to love it, and it fits perfectly with the millennial diet of beer, bread, whiskey and pizza,” Sossaman says, who hired his son-and- law Travis Tolmachoff, a chef by training, to help in the new venture. In fact, that’s who Sossaman turns to when making decisions, the mil- lennials in his family and on the farm. If they’re not into it, then I don’t see it as a good move going for- ward, he says — two of his daughters work at Hayden Flour Mills. Sossaman explains the flavor of today’s wheat has been lost through hybridization and the shortening, or dwarfing, of plants to increase yields during a time of hunger and war. It was needed then, he says, but today consumers want flavor and they want to connect with their food. In shortening the height of the wheat plant, breeders also dwarfed the root system, which Sossaman says pulls up min- eral from the soil and adding different flavors to the grain. For traditional wheat, Sossaman says the root system is maybe 3-4 feet deep. For the ancient grains he is growing, the root systems are going down as much as 12 feet into the soil. OCTOBER 2018 SEEDWORLD.COM / 21 Steve Sossaman.