Tall Grass bakery big on Christian stewardship
WINNIPEG, MB—When Tall Grass Prairie Bread Company opened in Wolseley more than 20 years ago, the owners baked 30 loaves of bread, two dozen muffins and 12 cinnamon buns for opening day.
Today, the bakery has expanded to a second location and produces a combined total of 2,000 loaves of bread and 5,000 cinnamon buns each week.
While the amount of baking they produce has changed, the company's commitment to using as many locally-sourced, organic ingredients as possible—as well as its commitment to providing meaningful employment, supporting local farmers and being good stewards of the Earth—has stayed the same.
"Everything I know to be true about faith is that you care about creation and you care about people—that they are fed," says Tabitha Langel, who owns Tall Grass along with her husband, Paul, as well as Lyle and Kathy Barkman.
The company started as a bread co-op run by members of Grain of Wheat Church Community. Group members pondered what it might look like to have a just and healthy food system, and whether or not it was possible to run a viable business driven by ethical values.
Soon a handful of members had the idea to start their own bakery. It took more than $40,000 in private loans and savings to start, and many people on the outside looking in were skeptical—would people really pay $2.50 for a loaf of bread just so that farmers could get a fair wage, as opposed to paying 50 cents for a loaf of bread at the supermarket?
The answer, it turns out, is yes. Today, Tall Grass employs more than 50 people and supports at least five Manitoba farms. In addition to the two locations, they have opened a second business, Grass Roots Prairie Kitchen, selling preserves, baking products and organic sunflower oil.
"We deliberately bake from scratch with as much processing done on-site as we can," says Langel, who notes that she learned to bake bread while growing up on a Hutterite farm. "Sometimes I feel like we're more of a farm than a bakery."
Langel is happy to see the Church realizing that food justice issues are God's issues.
"In an age when business and industry rule, and our government defers policy increasingly to them, if the church and other people do not stay awake, the damage to food and the environment will be catastrophic," she says.
"Our goal is to be as local as we can and as organic as we can."
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