The future of local food? Let's call it East Tennessee Wheat.

Imagine bread, beer and whiskey made from grains grow locally. From Niedlov's to Sequatchie Cove Farm to Red Clay Farms, an idea is brewing.

Erik Zilen is counting hands.

Counting all the pairs of hands intimately connected – start to finish, seed to bread – in the creation of one single Niedlov's loaf.

Behind him, as we sit together at a two-top, a line forms at Niedlov's Bakery & Cafe, the Main St. bakery he and Lauren have owned since 2015. They order Challah. Seeded Appalachian. Sourdough. Pioneer White.

Erik, though, sees what his customers don't. Sees what they can't. At least, not yet.

In his mind's eye, he pictures the vast grain fields of the Midwest. All the hands there planting, harvesting, milling. Sees the long-haul truckers. His own team of employees who unlock the bakery door at 3 am to get started, their hands and knuckles kneading into white dough while the city sleeps.

All of it, one long chain of relationships.

"How many people and hands does it take to make one Niedlov's loaf?" he wonders.

It is a question that has shaped his life for years. It is a question at the heart of local food movements.

The higher the number of hands, the more removed we are from our food. If it takes 150 hands, say, to create one loaf of bread and we can't name any of those people, then we have foggily drifted far from the source of so much of our lives. Our food has no face.

But if the number is low – we can shake the hands that feed us, as Michael Pollan says – then we are intimately, gloriously connected with our food. The more hands we know – this farmer, that baker – the more food becomes real.

Local food movements, including Food as a Verb, want to reduce this number to its lowest denominator.

Erik has a vision: local bread grown from local grain planted, harvested, milled, cleaned and baked by local hands.

So, he keeps counting hands – seed to loaf – wondering how low this number can go?

How many do you think?

Right now, how many hands does it take?

Thirty miles south from Niedlov's, Bill and Kelsey Keener stand in a field of summer corn asking a similar question.

"Where are local grains?" asks Bill, and one wonder if he is posing the question to farmers from ages past, his own self or future generations.

Bill and Kelsey are father and son farmers of Sequatchie Cove Farm, a fourth-generation farm in Marion County known for a variety of things – from activism and philosophy to workshop practicality and abundant produce.

"The future of local grains," said Bill. "Within the local food community, how can we introduce grains? To me, it is the final frontier."

Selected and indigenous grains would be appropriate for our ecosystem and climate. A collective of farms would grow varieties of organic wheat and would operate a shared mill.

"You need millers. Bakers and brewers and distillers," Bill said. "All these coming together."

A prototype could exist on Sequatchie Cove Farm, which could grow corn and wheat with an on-site mill where grain is transformed into two favorite things:

"A farm-stand and bakery," said Bill. "A farmstead brewery."

"Grains of the future that are indigenous to this region," he continued. "Grains that quickly adapt and love the sun, love the heat, all with nutritional value and grown on small acreage."

Carbon is sequestered. A small farm diversified. Community health strengthened. And the number of hands decreases.

Thirty miles north from Niedlov's, Ron Shaffer owns and operates Red Clay Farms, a 25-acre certified organic farm in Cleveland, Tennessee.

He mills on a Tyrollean stone mill. Each week at Main St. Farmers' Market, Shaffer sells a vast array of produce – sourghum, granola, microgreens, vegan cheesecake – and bags of milled organic grains, flours – bread, pastry, all-purpose, rye, pumpernickel, oat – and brans.

"We are currently sourcing our grains from Azure Standard," he said.

When he began milling, Red Clay sourced grains from Windy Acres – north of Nashville – and Berea College.

"Since then, the 86-year-old farmer at Windy Acres has died," Ron said, "and Berea started selling most of their grain to a local brewery."

So, he orders organic grains from Azure, some 2,400 miles away in Oregon.

"There are some organic farmers growing grains in the Memphis area, and they are looking for a miller," he said, "but our mill will only do about 120 pounds per hour and they need more capacity."

Ron has grown yellow dent corn; this spring, he's planting hard red wheat.

"We would prefer to buy local and regional, but don't know of anyone local who grows organic grains," he said. "If you come across any organic grain growers in the region, we would love to hear about them."

This past summer, Erik, Lauren and their two kids roadtripped west. Whitewater rafting, stargazing, camping.

And pilgrimage.

They stopped in Swan Valley, Idaho, about 1800 miles from Chattanooga.

They visited the organic wheat farms growing grain that are used in Niedlov's bread.

"I’ve never seen that amount of wheat, with giant mountains as the backdrop," said Erik. "There is no context for what that amount of wheat looks like."

Then, they visited Central Milling in Logan, Utah, which sells 37 varieties of organic wheat grain to bakeries across the US.

Including Niedlov's, 20 pallets at a time.

"We cannot do what we do without commitments from them." Erik said.

There in Utah, they talked with millers and forklift operators. Shook the hands that loaded the trucks with their own shipment.

If you eat Niedlov's bread, you are connected to dozens of hands in Utah and Idaho some two thousand miles away.

"We got back to Chattanooga on a Tuesday," Erik recalls, "and our wheat arrived on Wednesday."

Erik, 40, studied economics at a university in Philadelphia, then took off for Europe, quickly drawn to bakery culture.

"I can remember different parts of Europe, falling in love with bread," he said. "I'd just sit and watch bakers and bakeries."

Good with his hands, he left economics for construction, then a think tank. In 2015, he and Lauren purchased Niedlov's and began to transform it into a bakery acting in powerful ways for the community. (But that's a larger story for another Sunday.)

He studied at the Baking Institute of San Francisco. Devoured as many books and classes. Began travelling to grain conferences.

Over time, a question began to ferment inside Erik.

"This bread in Europe," he began. "Can we do that here in Tennessee?"

A new vision began:

Local bread grown from local grain harvested, milled, cleaned and baked by local hands.

A co-op mill shared by farms, supported by local bakeries, restaurants, distilleries and breweries.

"How do I lease a piece of land to start growing wheat so grains can work here?" Erik said. "Two days a week, out there doing the work, milling. It starts with milling."

"Then, other farmers would send their grain there. We'd start growing our own, too," he continued.

Restaurants, other bakeries, breweries – all would begin purchasing, supporting, strengthening this.

"Then, it starts to make sense," he said.

Today, when we buy a loaf of Niedlov's bread, we are the blessed recipients of a long string of labor, hands working from Utah to Chattanooga to produce this timeless food.

"I love being a part of this ancient craft of bread-making, a craft that dates back almost 9,000 years," Erik said. "It is both humbling and a gift to participate in a craft that has been formed by so many hands."

So, currently, how many hands involved in one loaf?

"You have a loaf of bread? Definitely 50 sets of hands have touched that product somehow," Erik said.

Imagine that number drops to 30 hands.

Or even 15.

All local.

Erik even daydreams a name for it.

East Tennessee Wheat.

"Even if it's five loaves a day, that’s where it starts," he said. "Grown, milled and sold here."

All photography by Sarah Unger. Visit SarahCatherinePhoto.com

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