Our Story
WE’RE GROWING GRAIN FOR A CHANGING WORLD.
The Wairarapa Grains Collective was born to solve a problem. Pea weevils struck our local pea crop in 2016, but our four farming families – including two past winners of the Ballance Farm Environmental Supreme Awards – didn’t spray our way out. Instead, we went looking for another way to feed New Zealand.
Test plantings revealed that durum wheat, an ancient grain first cultivated over 10,000 years ago, thrives in the Wairarapa’s long, dry summer. The main ingredient in pasta, durum is also a staple food that New Zealanders have long imported from overseas. We’re proud to be Aotearoa’s only homegrown durum wheat, and proud our neighbours with a golden grain grown here, grown right.
Meet the team
MICHAEL & KAREN WILLIAMS
AHIARUHE FARM
NATHAN & KATE WILLIAMS
OTAHUAO FARM
HENRY & PASCOE REYNOLDS
MAYFIELD FARM
ROSS & DANI JOHNSON
PAMPAS FARM
GRAINS FROM PADDOCK TO PIZZA
Durum’s famous strength also mIn typical grain farming, your harvest simply disappears on a truck one autumn morning. A few Saturday mornings hand-selling our durum wheat flour at the Greytown market showed us a deeper connection was possible.
“This is totally different to anything we’ve ever done,” says Collective farmer Ross Johnson. “We meet the food producers. We’re out there chatting with the people who eat our product. We feel like we’re building a food community.”
That local food community is at the heart of everything we do. At the Wairarapa Grains Collective, we see our durum flour as the next step in New Zealand’s proud paddock-to-plate tradition. We’re proud to provide Aotearoa’s producers, restaurants, and families our healthy, delicious golden flour – and a new bond with the land we all call home.
