Junction City’s Camas Country Mill Bakery serves ‘the Cadillac’ of flour

At Camas Country Mill, Tom and Sue Hunton grow and mill grains. But not just any grains. 

“We’re the Cadillac of flour,” said Tom, referring to their heritage grain blends and flours used by renowned bakeries such as Tartine in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and high-end farm-to-table restaurant Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York.

Tom Hunton’s family has been farming the fertile soils of Junction City since 1952. He knows the landscape through natural boundaries most residents today recognize only as road names — the river that runs alongside what is now River Road, the former prairie, now marked by Prairie Road. He recalls the old farming families, like the Deterings, that his dad worked with.

When Tom’s parents bought 300 acres in 1950, they were part of a generation of World War II veterans who attended government-sponsored farm schools and built the foundation of modern Oregon agriculture.

Tom always knew he would be a farmer. After studying animal and crop science at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, he returned home to farm. Sue worked as a schoolteacher. In 1969, they bought the land where they still live today, eventually expanding to 2,700 acres, with about 2,400 still farmed. They grow grains, as well as legumes like garbanzos and brown lentils, wherever the soil will allow, and grow grass seed on the rest. Tom’s mother, Ellen, is 101 and still lives on the farm.

The Camas Country Mill Bakery

The Camas Country Mill Bakery on Purkerson Road in Junction City offers fresh-baked sourdough bread, potato loaf, cinnamon rolls, muffins, scones and more made with the mill’s specialty flours. Visitors can also purchase bags of flour and grains.

Tom discovered the Lower Fern Ridge School on Craigslist, slated for demolition. Sue’s background as a schoolteacher wouldn’t allow that to happen, so they embarked on a dramatic rescue to move the structure 2.5 miles across farm fields.

Today, visitors can enjoy their fresh-baked goods from the bakery in the schoolhouse, where original beadboard walls display names students carved back in 1936. It’s also a community gathering place for special events such as weddings or funerals, and baking classes where students learn the unique properties of whole grain flours, plus “lunch and learn” sessions featuring topics like beekeeping and sheep shearing.

The bakery offers sourdough and potato loaf Tuesday and Wednesday, with additional breads Thursday and Friday and the most variety on Saturday, including focaccia and a monthly special.

“Every day we offer cinnamon rolls and muffins and scones,” Sue said. “And Tuesdays, is teff brownie Tuesday.” 

A return to milling

The 2008 financial collapse sparked the Huntons’ most significant business decision.

“After 2009, there was interest in local foods, some specialty things,” Tom said. “We started experimenting, raising teff and bread flour, and milling flour and grains with pretty good success.”

Initially, the Huntons sent their grain to Eagle Point’s Butte Creek Mill for processing, then they distributed the finished flour to Portland bakeries. But to truly control quality and capture value, they needed their own mill.

“We were still in the commodity business if we couldn’t produce the value-added product,” Tom said.

Milling used to be common in the Willamette Valley, but a mill hadn’t operated here for nearly 80 years. Camas Country Mill operates four stone mills, each equipped with 3-foot by 6-inch composite millstones imported from Ethiopia. Stone milling preserves the complete nutritional profile of the grain.

“Everything goes into your flour,” Sue said. “The only thing that we do is maybe sift 15% of the bran out for some of the sifted flours.”

This approach yields flour with distinctive flavor profiles, which bakeries and high-end restaurants clamor for. The mill produces about 60,000 pounds of flour weekly. Unlike retail-focused mills like Bob’s Red Mill, Camas Country Mill wholesales to artisan bakeries and restaurants.

In the early days, the Huntons grew 95% of what they milled. Now Tom says it’s about 40%, and they work with growers in seven states that grow to the Hunton’s standards. The growers are progressive, on the leading edge of regenerative agriculture and about half of them are certified organic. They also do toll milling, where distributors send their grains to Camas Country Mill for processing.

“We’re not growing 100 bushels of a variety,” Tom said. “We may have one that yields 60, but we pay twice as much for it, and those 60 bushels will be more nutrient dense, because all of the available nutrients in the soil are in that 60 bushels.”

Heritage grains find new markets

The mill specializes in heritage and ancient grains and seeds that were once considered unmarketable, such as teff, a flour made from a gluten-free seed native to Ethiopia. Varieties like Sonora wheat, brought to California by Spanish missionaries, and ancient grains like einkorn, emmer and spelt now command premium prices.

“Before, we couldn’t hardly sell those three grains,” Sue said. “And now it’s like we can hardly keep them.”

The Sonora wheat produces a golden, soft pastry flour that Tom calls “the creme de la creme” for tortillas, and it has found its way to distilleries in Kentucky, where it’s used to create unique whiskey profiles.

Demand continues to grow for the specialty flours that taste heartier than typical grocery store flours. The mill recently added a roaster and flaker and pearling equipment. The roaster allows them to toast grains for deeper flavors, while the flaker produces oats and other cereals. The pearling equipment processes grains like barley by removing the outer hull to create pearl grains for cooking. 

Want to go?

Camas Country Mill Bakery & Store
91948 Purkerson Road, Junction City
Tuesday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
541-225-5640
www.camascountrymill.com