From the beginning, the intention for Hylsten was clear: to work only with stoneground flours and to create direct, human-scale relationships with our farmers and millers.
With this intention, we have been lucky enough over the years to work with some incredible people. In the early days, we were slinging bags of flour over our shoulders, straight off the mill of the Fresh Flour Co., run by Andrew Gilhespy.
It was an incredible privilege to have daily conversations with Andrew about the diversity of grains he could source and the stories of the farmers who were growing for us. We started to know these people on a first-name basis and felt a strong connection through them back to the land.
After a couple of years, Andrew shifted his focus to milling exclusively for his own products, which include pastas, crackers, and digestives made with wholegrain—helping to reduce the waste produced in milling white flour.
Since then, we have been lucky enough to work with Tim Williams, who at the time was transforming the land at Crocadon Farm and grew some beautiful heritage landrace varieties of wheat for us.
We now work with Rosy Benson of Field Bakery and Fred Price of Gothelney Farm, who supply us with all of our wholegrain flours. These are milled by Rosy on her beautiful New American stone mill. As a baker first and foremost, Rosy works alongside Fred to select grains that are genetically diverse—enhancing the ecosystems in which they are grown, as well as ensuring they have excellent baking qualities.
The final piece of the puzzle is the source of all our white flours: N.R. Stoate & Sons, Cann Mills.
Michael and Ollie are sixth- and seventh-generation millers who produce wonderfully consistent flours, enabling us to focus on working as much wholegrain into our breads as possible.
All of the farmers and millers mentioned here are part of the South West Grain Network—an organisation that weaves us all together and works to facilitate these kinds of connections across the South West and beyond.
In December 2021, disaster struck when a malfunctioning oven timer caused a fire in the bakery. Although the fire was contained, smoke damage spread into every crevice, leaving us unable to trade. As a small business, we didn’t have the capital to recover from such a loss.
Then, something incredible happened. Our community, both local and beyond, came together to set up a GoFundMe campaign, raising an astonishing £28,000 in just six weeks. This generosity allowed us to pay our staff while we were closed, cover the repairs, and buy a brand-new oven.
After four months of closure, we reopened in April 2022.
There aren’t enough words to express the gratitude we feel toward the community that saved us from the brink of closure. This second beginning feels as though it is built on a foundation of love. Love and support from a community that deeply cares about truly nourishing one another and revels in the soulfulness of bread-making. A community that recognises bread as food greater than the sum of its parts, food that brings people together and represents our connection back to the land.
Kate has been a baker for many years now. Her most influential training came from her time at E5 Bakehouse in Hackney, London. It was here that she deepened her knowledge of sourdough baking and relocalising grain economies. She also had the opportunity to teach both bread and pizza making on a weekly basis as well as leading a cohort for the Just Bread programme with the Refugee Council.
Kate discovered her love of bread making in her early twenties following some time spent working on a permaculture farm in Portugal. It was there that she realised that industrial agriculture has one of the largest impacts on the environment of any global industry. Wheat is one of the most widely grown crops in the world and so she saw what an impact it might have if that grain were grown more sustainably.
Hylsten is a culmination of this learning to provide nourishing, delicious, sustainably produced bread available to as many people as possible. Kate is equally passionate about the other arm of the business – the Bakery School and hopes to develop a variety of community outreach programs empowering people to bake at home.
Benji began his journey into all things grain as a trainee miller, working alongside Andrew at Fresh Flour. It was there that he started to learn the art of milling and fell in love with the intricacies of working with a wide variety of locally grown grains.
Benji has been behind the scenes at Hylsten from day one, and in June 2022, he became a co-owner of the business alongside Kate. His fierce dedication to all things Hylsten enables us to continually push the business forward. A true jack of all trades, Benji moves gracefully through all aspects of the business, supporting and shaping it at every turn.