OUR MISSION AND GUIDING PRINCIPALS
Maine Grains serves bakers, brewers, chefs and families freshly-milled, organic and heritage grains sourced from the Northeast.
By re-localizing grain production and milling we support the health and livelihood of the farmers and communities we serve. Our traditional stone milling process ensures nutrient-packed products that are full of flavor and perfect for natural fermentation baking and cooking. Maine Grains is creating jobs, improving land use, and providing healthy food for all while serving as a successful model for thriving local economies.
Our Story
Skowhegan bustled when its paper, wool, and shoe factories were humming. As with grain, these industries left in search of efficiency and large scale, and the town, and its farms were left behind. Today, Skowhegan is fertile ground for an agricultural renaissance led by a new generation of thought leaders, farmers and food producers. By focusing on our greatest assets: grit, resilience, and agricultural know-how, we are creating opportunities. Our once vacant buildings are humming again with new life and new businesses.
Maine Grains isn’t just a new business, it’s an engine of transformation. The mill has helped the town of Skowhegan take center stage in a global renaissance to relocalize grain economies. Maine Grains bold idea to repurpose a jailhouse into a gristmill has created an international following and Skowhegan has successfully established itself as one of the country’s emerging rural food hubs. Communities across the globe look to Skowhegan as an example of how to successfully restore the benefits of regional grain production and heritage seed.
Exercising common sense, and learning from those that have come before us, we are committed to making the most delicious, nourishing foods from whole grains. Maine Grains uses modern equipment and methods that are steeped in tradition to produce freshly-milled flours that are full of flavor. Grains have long been at the center of a healthy diet and the foods that form our cultural identities. Maine Grains supports the innovators, educators and community builders that are restoring village bakeries, breweries, and thriving family farms. From chaff to dust, we move our byproducts on to composters, livestock farmers, and value-added producers so that our mill is zero-waste facility.
Our Grains
Maine Grains manufactures locally grown stone-milled grains, a staple food in the human diet. Nature knows a good thing. We mill whole grain into flour that is unadulterated, perfectly fresh, and full of flavor. Our grain is packed with vitamins & minerals, like vitamin B, zinc & magnesium. Whole grains are plentiful in protein, healthy fats and oils, and fiber.
We choose age old technology with fresh intention, in an effort to build a lasting agricultural economy for the seed sowers and bread makers of the future.
Through use of our traditional stone milling process, we preserve the exceptional flavor and nutrition inherent in the grain. Slow turning mill stones keep the flour cool which improves performance in natural fermentation baking and enhances flavor. Our freshly milled flour is ideal for all-purpose baking and cooking.
New England has a rich history of producing grains like oats, rye, wheat, corn, and buckwheat. Maine Grains is reviving this tradition to ensure that nutritious local grains are available and affordable for our community. Outside of commodity pricing and markets, Maine Grains works directly with each of its farmers to create transparent, sustainable, and economically feasible trade relationships. Farmers supplying Maine Grains pledge never to use chemical fertilizers or pesticides on their grain crops. The Maine Grains milling facility is certified organic through the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.
Our Farmers
Turning the contributions of many into sustenance for all. Maine Grains works directly with growers to increase the market for their organic grain and rotations crops. We work with each of our farmers to create transparent, sustainable, and economically viable trade relationships. Farmers supplying Maine Grains pledge never to use chemical fertilizers or pesticides on their grain crops and our milling facility is certified organic by the Maine Organic Farmer and Gardeners Association.
Grains feed people, animals and help to manage healthy soils – ensuring their vitality for generations to come. A regional gristmill makes high quality grains from local farms available for food, while also making seed, animal feed and the utility of grain byproducts available to communities. Before chemicals were used to kill weeds on farms, cover crops like oats and rye were commonly used to deter weeds naturally. When grown in rotation with other crops like dry beans, peas, and clover, grains help balance nutrients in the soil to produce the tastiest food and lush yields.
Our Team
Amber Lambke
Michael Scholtz
Adam Rosario
Schantel Pullen
Kayla Carrier
Paul Pollaro
Rick Rodeback
Adam Bowman
Chad Curtis
Erik Levine
Katelyn Perry
Olivia Atherton
Anne Roosevelt
Richard Roberts
Miles Lambke
Our History
1837 — The Bread Basket of New England
Maine’s agricultural heritage is rich, and the grain economy in Somerset County has deep historical roots. Somerset was the bread basket of New England in the 19th century, producing 239,000 bushels of wheat per year at its peak in 1837, enough to feed more than 100,000 people. Painting: Met Museum, public domain, The Veteran in a New Field, 1865, Winslow Homer, American
1897
The Somerset County Jail, a Victorian-era building, was built in downtown Skowhegan.
1922
Spaulding and Watson purchase the former gristmill, across the street from the jailhouse, from D.A. & W.E. Porter, where they custom milled grain for livestock farmers. Flour, sugar, molasses, and draft horses to work the woods arrive in downtown Skowhegan by train, which terminates right in front of the present-day Maine Grains Gristmill.
Photo: Spaulding & Watson millers standing in front of the first Mack Truck in Skowhegan, loaded up with grain.
1948
With the expansion of the use of automobiles, the railroad tracks through downtown Skowhegan are ripped up to make room for a public parking lot, representing a shift in the way we produce and purchase grain products. Grain farming began to move westward, and the grain farms and small-scale mills of rural Maine began to close up shop.
Photo: The Skowhegan Railroad station was positioned in what is now our parking lot.
1955
Spaulding and Watson sold to Neil Grain Co. who later sold to Campbell’s True Value in Madison, operating until 1968.
Image: Grain tag from Spaulding & Watson in Skowhegan.
2007 — The Kneading Conference
Community members in Skowhegan aimed to address the growing ‘locavore’ movement and demand for locally grown grains for bread baking by starting a conference that would bring together grain growers, bread bakers, millers, and wood-fired oven builders annually for discussions on the topic of reviving regional grain economies. Friends and cofounders of the Kneading Conference, Amber Lambke and Michael Scholz were inspired by bakers and farmers willing to grow and use local grain, and they decided that a regional grain economy required a mill.
2009 — Somerset Grist Mill
Facing the vacancy of an historic 14,000 square foot Victorian jailhouse in their downtown, and the lack of gristmills which once serviced a robust grain economy in central Maine, Amber and Michael partnered to buy the building for $65,000, and formed the Somerset Grist Mill. The former county jail transforms a blighted part of downtown Skowhegan into a thriving food hub and community gathering place.
Photo: Amber & Michael with the brand new stone mill, shipped from Austria.
2012
September 8, Maine Grains celebrates its grand opening. After five years of research and business development, the facility begins to fire up the milling equipment and receive its first shipments of Maine-grown grain.
Photo: 15 tons of wheat being delivered from Aroostook County, ME.
2019
Maine Grains has purchased over $1,000,000 worth of Maine Grown Grain, and is selling delicious, freshly milled product to bakeries, chefs & breweries throughout the Northeast. Maine Grains works to fulfill a mission to provide a strong, positive community impact by creating jobs, improve land utilization, focus on a holistic food chain, reap the rewards of fresh food to our health and happiness and serve as a successful model of local economic growth. Maine Grains grows so that business can be used as a force for good in Skowhegan.
Photo: Operations Manager John Violette overseeing flour coming off the large stone mill.
2022
10 million pounds of grain milled in our first decade
