Author: Brooke Lucy

Join us for our Grand Opening on 11/19! We are thrilled to be able to officially open our doors to all of our friends and neighbors who have patiently waited for the green light to visit.

We would love to welcome you to visit any time between 9 am and 3 pm on Saturday, November 19th to say hi, pick up some products, or take a peak at the new site.

If you want the grand tour, show up (and RSVP please!) at 10 AM or 2 PM to secure your spot in the crowd that gets the behind-the-scenes look.

If you’re feeling inspired, we’d be honored if you want to bring some Bluebird small bites / finger food to celebrate! We’ll have drinks, Bluebird snacks, and shopping opportunities available. Bring a friend, and RSVP below if you’re coming to a tour.

This event is now closed for RSVPs.

Here is Our Rural Small Business Award Video!

As we’ve grown and evolved, we’ve been very aware of our local and online community’s part in making Bluebird successful. We’re grateful for the recognition and excited to see what else 2022 has in store for our expanding business. And big thanks to the Washington State SBA for creating this video clip for the SBA awards that were held in May of 2022.

The SBA Seattle District celebrated National Small Business Week on Wednesday, May 5. Hosted by SCORE and supported by the SBA Resource Partner Network, the event took place at the Museum of Flight and was attended by more than 300 SBA resource partners, small business lenders and small businesses. The annual event, which typically takes place during National Small Business Week has not been held in person during the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

An evening full of awards and recognition for local small businesses and resource providers was kicked off by keynote speaker Dr. Lisa Brown, Director of Washington State Department of Commerce. SBA Seattle District Director Kerrie Hurd greeted the audience in the spirit of “collaboration across our ecosystem of small business supporters.” Acknowledging the SBA resource and lending partners in attendance, Hurd thanked everyone for the tremendous undertaking and collective teamwork that has taken place to deliver SBA COVID Relief Programs and small business funding across Washington state and northern Idaho.

The evening culminated with the presentation of awards to small business winners in 4 categories. The award for 2022 Rural Small Business of the Year was give to Bluebird. Brooke and Sam Lucy attended the event with Okanogan County SBDC representative Lew Blakney, who nominated Bluebird in December.

SBA is the only cabinet-level federal agency fully dedicated to small business and provides counseling, capital, and contracting expertise for small businesses. Some of the guidelines for SBA recognition include growth in net worth and business expansion, increase in jobs and sales, innovativeness of products or services, response to adversity and contributions to community-oriented projects.

Bluebird has worked with the SBDC services over the years for education and planning purposes. During the pandemic, Bluebird utilized SBA resources to provide funding to hire more employees during the baking and cooking boom, and to help transition to Bluebird’s new facility which they are scheduled to move into next month.

This week Bluebird Grain Farms has teamed up with the non-profit organization, World Central Kitchen, to help bring food relief to people of Ukraine. Now through April 3rd, 5% of our proceeds via our online store will be donated to World Central Kitchen’s relief efforts and the chefs of Ukraine.

World Central Kitchen posted the above phot of their website of chefs cooking paella in their kitchen. They state “The new WCK Relief Kitchen is located in Przemysl, a polish city just several miles from the order with Ukraine that is receiving tens of thousands of refugees every day. From this kitchen, our team has the capacity to scale up and cook 100,000 meals per day utilizing 12 massive WCK paellea pans and 12 large ovens.”

When faced with a devastating war so far away, it is hard to know what to do or how to help. We love food, we love chefs, and we love and believe in democracy. This effort felt like a simple way that we can help. Our goal is to raise $2000 to donate to WCG.org by April 3rd. As of 4/1 we have raised $1050.00. Will you join us?

To learn more about WCK and to read about their boots on the ground efforts visit: WCG.ORG

You can follow them on instagram @wckitchen / #chefsofukraine

Shop now and 5% will be donated.

Ends April 3rd, 2022, 11:59 PM

Good Food Awards Announces the 244 Winners of 2022.

We are honored to have our Cracked Farro Porridge as one of the 244 Good Food Award Winners of 2022. Our Cracked Farro Porridge is finely cracked, from our whole grain Emmer Farro. Just one ingredient, pure and simple. Always cracked, fresh, to order. Cracked Farro Porridge can be used as a hot cereal or be prepared as a polenta, savory style, or used as a soup enhancer, as shown in our Cauliflower soup recipe. In celebration of our award we are offering 15% off all of our cracked farro porridge items, now through February 6th. For recipes and information about our Cracked Farro Porridge, please click HERE.

“The Good Food Foundation exists to celebrate, connect, empower and leverage the passionate and engaged, yet often overlooked, players in the food system who are driving towards tasty, authentic and responsible food in order to humanize and reform our American food culture.” To Find more information about the Good Food Foundation please click HERE.

For the first time, a live pop up shop stocks the award-winning food and drink from 39 States & D.C. through January San Francisco, CA (January 14, 2022) – The Good Food Foundation is thrilled to introduce the 244 exceptional crafters of food and drink from 39 states and Washington, D.C. who rose to the top to become 2022 Good Food Award Winners. With safety in mind, the Awards Ceremony has been postponed to Friday, March 4, and will be preceded by the San Francisco Good Food Mercantile on Thursday, March 3 (tickets here). To mark the announcement of the Winners today, both Alice Waters and René Redzepi, legendary chef of Noma, sent congratulatory videos. Speaking to the sustainability and social responsibility practices of the Winners, Redzepi noted: “I believe it is our collective efforts that can turn the tide and ensure our shared earth will survive. You are the champions of the future, and you are leading the way.” This year’s Good Food Award Winners hail from 39 states and Washington, D.C. Chosen in a blind tasting from thousands of entries before passing a further sustainability and social responsibility vetting process, nearly half of the Winners are first-time awardees. 56% of the Winners are woman-owned businesses and one in six are BIPOC-owned businesses. Across 18 categories, each recognized crafter demonstrated exceptional taste and a deep commitment to building a more sustainable, just food system.

For those eager to taste these extraordinary products, over 100 of the winning food and drink – many not typically available in the Bay Area – are stocking shelves for a limited time only at the two-week Good Food Shop in the Ferry Building (within The Epicurean Trader storefront, January 15-30). THE FULL LIST OF 2022 GOOD FOOD AWARD WINNERS CAN BE FOUND HERE.

After several years of planning and many gentle nudges from our Bluebird community, we are delighted to announce that we have broken ground on our new processing facility. Our new building will be located just off of Highway 20 between Winthrop and Twisp (about 5 miles south of our current location) on our 32 acres of farmland. The first phase is a 6000 square foot building, that will be grain processing, packaging, shipping and receiving, and office space.

It is our goal to build a facility that allows us to increase our production capacity so that our farm business can keep up with the demand for ancient and heritage grains. We are looking forward to creating a better work environment for our dedicated and growing staff. We want the public to have easier access to picking up product, along with inbound and outbound freight. We hope to offer education classes, particularly with our local kids and regional farm networks in the near future. It has always been our vision and dream to be able to showcase our vertically integrated farm business, in one spot, and here it is!

As our commitment to regenerative agriculture grows and expands beyond the Methow Valley we want to engage our community in the planting, growing, harvesting, storing, processing, packaging, and selling of our grain products. It will be a year, at least, until we are moved in, and perhaps a few more years until we have a formal store and are able to offer classes (phase 2). In the meantime, we want to share with our community what we are up to. The photos here give you an idea of what our building will look like. We are also curious: What would you like to see on our site? Please feel free to share your thoughts and dreams for agriculture in the Methow Valley with us. Reach out to co-owner Brooke Lucy , and let her know your thoughts (we’re sure you have some!) as we embark on this new journey together.

Spelt: youngest of the bunch.

Let’s learn some facts about Spelt. Scientifically known as Triticum spelta. Among the trio of ancient wheats, it stands as the youngest, born from a cross between emmer and a wild grass. It is the latest addition to the Bluebird product line, meaning you can now acquire all of your ancient grains from our farm. Not all spelt is created equal. Bluebird Spelt is a ancient variety that came from the University of North Dakota who has been preserving and maintaining landrace varieties of Spelt. Bluebird Spelt is harvested in the hull and has to be de-husked before human consumption, unlike modernized hulless spelt that has been hybridized for industrial agriculture. Are hulless varieties a true ancient grain? We will leave that up to you to decide. Our focus is preserving and maintaining ancient varieties.

Spelt’s nutrient-rich properties enhance baked goods with its high protein and fiber supporting better digestion. Both as a crop and as a food, it nourishes well-being, enriches fertile soils, and promotes a climate-resilient future with its time-tested ancestral genetics.

Spelt vs. Wheat

Unlike common wheat, spelt has not undergone widespread cultivation, resulting in fewer genetic modifications from domestication, with only 42 chromosomes. Like einkorn and emmer, spelt has the outer husk that protects the kernel which is a main differentiator between ancient and modern wheats.

Spelt is an excellent substitute for common whole wheat bread flour, making it the favored ancient grain for yeast and sourdough breads. Additionally, while it is not gluten-free, it contains less gluten and a lower glycemic index than modern wheat, making it an excellent choice for those seeking healthier alternatives to standard wheat products.

Spelt vs. the other Ancient Wheats

Spelt is a slightly more complex grain than Emmer (Triticum dicoccum) with a 42 chromosome count and differentiating flavor profile. Emmer yields a rich nutty flavor, while spelt is sweet and malty. In terms of appearance, spelt has a distinctive rounded shape, setting it apart from the robust rust-colored kernel of emmer or the petite blonde kernel of Einkorn. It produces a softer, slightly more glutenous dough than the other ancient wheat varieties, which makes it an easier product to bake with, especially when just beginning to explore the ancient grains.

Fun Facts about Spelt

Cultivated since the Bronze Age (c. 3300 BC)
A staple food in Europe for centuries.
Known as dinkel in Germany, where it is very popular.
Can contain 20%+ Daily Value for protein and several B vitamins.

Good Food Winners!

We are delighted to announce that three of our grain products won the 2021 Good Food Foundation “Good Food Award” in the Grains category. This is our second year in a row that our products have won, last year was the Einka & Lentil Blend. We would like to acknowledge the Good Food Foundation and its mission which is “to celebrate authentic and responsible food in order to humanize and reform our American food culture.” We love this foundation because it allows us to connect with food buyers and food producers who share the central tenant that good food really does matter! There is nothing that we feel more passionate about than this topic, as it has been central to our business mission.

The Good Food Foundation does have a pop-up shop through February 7th where you can purchase some of this year’s winning product. If you are interested in the pop-up shop click on the POP-UP SHOP image below. We are offering a 10% discount on a bundle of three of our winning items now through the end of February via our online store.

Check out these recipes to complement our winning products

Leek & Squash Einkornotto Farro & Vegetable Winter Casserole

Old World Cereal with Cinnamon, Vanilla, Walnuts & Dried Fruit

Join Us at the UCCS Grain School!

Saturday, February 6th, Bluebird owner, Brooke Lucy will be participating in the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Grain School panel. For the last 5 years, Grain School has brought a community together ranging from grain growers, millers, maltsters, brewers, chefs, educators, scientists, and students to share and complement knowledge and skills and build business relations in relevant topics. These topics have included whole and heritage grains and their relationship to health, nutrition, dietary fiber, and the microbiome, environment and climate change issues related to agriculture, and topics of biodiversity, grain’s role in sustainable farming practices, and the newest in crop science to leverage the traits of old varieties of grain for nutrition and flavor in more modern strains. On Saturday 6th to learn about adding value to your grain products along with many more topics.

Check out this series at UCCS Grain School. Click HERE for more information.

Organic Einkorn Flour