Crafting, connecting, and communicating the good vibes of regional grains
Laune Bread began as a microbakery in 2015, with Chris MacLeod delivering bread by bicycle in Minneapolis. Four years later, his friend Tiff Ri joined as a co-owner, and the two opened their own brick and mortar shop in 2022. The focus of the business is to be a conduit for as much local food as possible.
“A relationship is an ingredient,” Chris clarifies, because he and Tiff know that without the people behind the food they use, there is no food. Their business represents the work and lives of many other farmers and food makers.
Laune names the human ingredients in every way they can: in conversation, over the counter in their shop and at the farmers’ market booths that were a steady part of their repertoire for many years. Sometimes, the relationships are spelled out in a kind of nutrition label on the bag of a loaf of bread. Frequently, connections surface in their twice monthly newsletter that has 2,000 subscribers.
Their commitment includes an annual accounting spreadsheet reveal so that eaters, and everyone else who is curious, can see just where everything Laune uses comes from. In 2023 for example, they could have saved $40,000 on food costs and labor if they purchased commodity flour and ingredients from standard suppliers.
That is a lot of money that most business owners would choose not to lose. Last year, over 75% of their ingredients budget remained in the Upper Midwest, with half of that going directly to local farmers and producers.
Chris says these connections help him and Tiff see that the bakery’s work matters beyond their own fiscal solvency. The effort that they and six other staff dedicate to sourcing ingredients, baking, selling, administrating, delivering —it all supports a web of people, lives, and livelihoods.
Chris began baking in the Bay Area, at places that emphasized the origin of everything except the flour. He moved to the Mill City (Minneapolis), sight unseen, to bake within a local grain economy…and quickly realized it didn’t yet exist.
“I wanted to prioritize the main ingredient in bread as a local ingredient,” he says. Though he couldn’t find the flour he wanted, Baker’s Field Flour and Bread, a bakery with milling at its center, was beginning, and Chris kept asking around until he found farmers willing and able to work with him.
Growing grain is a high-volume undertaking. Generally, grains are sold in bulk to brokers, who then find buyers that don’t want or need any link to a field or farm. Farmers are not rewarded for small scale production in the same way that higher priced foods like niche dairy, for example, can be; the final output—a pound of flour vs. a pound of esteemed cheese—can’t compare in price.
Once they found each other, Mark and his daughter Beth of Askegaard Organic Farm were eager to work with Baker’s Field and Chris. This month marks ten years that Laune’s been purchasing from Askegaard, and Baker's Field stores and toll mills the grain. (One aspect of this cyclical collaboration was highlighted in AGC’s short film The Farmer, The Miller & The Baker.) Laune also works with Luke Peterson Farms, another member of AGC’s network.
Tiff has a long history working in food in the Twin Cities, including Sun Street Breads, Restaurant Alma, and Rustica Bakery, where she and Chris met.
The two say they enjoy sharing the many responsibilities they do, from troubleshooting baking issues to modernizing classic recipes with local, seasonal ingredients. One example is making a variation of frangipane, using golden flaxmeal from Askegaard instead of almonds, that they call Flaxipane™. The result roots Laune right where they are, and provides customers with a steady, delicious reminder of how place fits into their food lives.
Every year they trade for rhubarb—and so doing, their community has a chance to barter with something that grows in their own yard, engaging with the practice of localness. After trading, customers can return for things like rhubarb corn cake, rhubarb vanilla custard danish, rhubarb orange cheesecake, or hibiscus rhubarb and lemon curd kolache, just a few of their creations.
Though their wheat sourcing channels are established, each new harvest demands adjustment. “We use identity preserved grains, so even though Luke always grows Forefront wheat, it never has the same baking properties,” Chris notes. From Askegaard they source the varieties Linkert and Noreen. While they feel skilled at changing their bread recipes to suit the characteristics of each crop, pastries can be challenging to re-formulate.
This reality is one element of cooperating with a regenerative ecosystem that they regularly explain; Tiff and Chris readily jump into a counter convo to describe why their baked goods are not cookie cutters of each other. Whether it’s this year’s shorter plum season (a couple of weeks as opposed to last year’s lengthy presence) or an unexpected shape on a known pastry—they relish those discussions.
The name Laune is a memento of Chris’ time studying abroad in Munich. When he asked friends what to bring to a party, they said he should bring the laune— “good vibes.”’ During his stay, he met a student whose parents owned a bakery in a small Bavarian town, and was inspired by the relationship that her parents had with their jobs and with each other and their daughter. “I thought, oh, maybe I should be a baker, but it took me a long time to realize that what I was interested in was this quality of life that I was seeing.”
If you’re in Minneapolis, come see what this bakery is doing. With connections and communication being so front of mind to Chris and Tiff, it’s no wonder they value the network of AGC, and the many spheres of connection it fosters, from listservs and working groups to the in-person gatherings like Baker’s Field’s recent Bakers Day, where intersections along the grain chain are nurtured. We are glad to have them and their good vibes in our system!
For more, check out the Laune Bread profile in Local FEAST! magazine, and stay in touch with Laune Bread using the links below!
