Artisan bakery Brasserie Bread has pioneered the way for single origin bread in Australia.

The brand’s single origin sourdough and single origin sprouted wheat are both made with flour milled from wheat grown in the Southern Flinders Ranges of South Australia – enabling traceability from the field to the retailer.

It’s the result of a five-year quest by the bakery’s co-founder Michael Klausen who said the development will have significant implications on the future of sustainable farming and baking industries.

“For years we’ve seen a global movement of chefs and consumers demanding to know where their food comes from and championing the concept of paddock-to-plate,” he said.

“You can track the origin of beef, lamb and vegetables, but not bread. It was as though wheat was forgotten.

“By being traceable we can look at how it is grown – soil management – who is growing it, what impact it has on the soil and so on. It will have strong characters from a single region, based on the climate, the soil, environmental factors and grain variety.

“The farmers, the millers and the artisan bakers will slowly see this.”

The wheat used in Brasserie Bread’s single origin range is grown and milled by Flinders Ranges Premium Grain, a company established 10 years ago by a group of farmers who wanted to differentiate their wheat. The company has said the unique qualities, which includes a protein content and elasticity that makes it particularly suitable to artisan bread making.

“I wanted to buy flour straight from the farmer. It took five years, but I finally found them and being part of the harvest this year was like a dream come true,” Michael said.

“It’s quite a coup for us for be involved,” Flinders Ranges Premium Grain chief executive officer Peter Barrie said.

“Artisan bread is made with flour, water and salt and at the heart of it is the flavour of the wheat – our wheat.

“The flavour of the flour is attributed to the variety of wheat and the soil and climate it was grown in: long summer days, intense sunlight at the right time and a long ripening period.”Buying the best quality flour has always been a priority for Brasserie Bread and baking with the single origin flour was both a professional and personal challenge for Michael and his team.

“We worked a lot with the flour, learning about its character, capabilities and strengths and we think we’ve got it right,” he said.

“This flour is an expression of the soil and climate it was grown in – it is regional food.”