Lot Character

The English word character is borrowed from the Greek word χαρακτήρ (kharakter) by way of Latin and then old French. It first appeared in the mid 14th century and by the 1640’s had come to mean “the sum of qualities that define a person or thing and distinguish it from another.” And while the years would see the meaning refined in its applications, this understanding remains the foundation upon which all the refinements depend.

A derivative of the word character is characteristic. This word also appears in the English as early as the 1660’s. A characteristic is “a distinctive trait that gives or indicates character.” So character is the sum of the characteristics of a person or thing.

Here at Heritage Grains & Milling Co., we know that artisan bakers craft their baked goods around the unique characteristics of the grain they use. And the sum of those characteristics contribute to the overall character of that grain which, in turn, contributes to the character of the baked good. The most important characteristics of a grain are discoverable through careful testing. The discerning baker looks for these and purchases grain based upon the quality of these characteristics.

To that end, every lot of grain sold by Heritage Grains & Milling Co. is sampled and tested to determine those characteristics thereby establishing the overall character of the lot. From this page, every miller, baker, and end consumer of our grains can look up the character of a lot of grain from our farm! We call this Total Lot Traceability™.

In order to find the character of a particular lot, simply look on the tag or label attached your grain or product containing grain and locate the lot number. Then, from the Lot Character menu above, select the lot number and click to be taken to the page describing that lot.

Please note that if a particular lot character page does not contain all of the various characteristics of your lot it means that we have not yet received the test results for that particular lot. It takes us several weeks from the time of harvest to clean and bag that lot. Samples are pulled during the bagging process and a test sample taken from the combination of those. Be sure to check back regularly as we post the characteristics just as soon as we receive them from the lab.

One other exciting aspect of our lot character pages is the opportunity to see the exact field where the lot was grown on the satellite view of Google Maps. This information is located at the bottom of the individual lot character pages.

All of us here at Heritage Grains & Milling Co. believe that this resource greatly contributes to our overall goal of reestablishing the lost relationships between the farmer, miller, baker, and consumer. We hope that you will gain in using it as we have in creating it!