It hits you the minute you open the door at Grist Milling & Bakery. That enticing, mouth-watering aroma of fresh baked bread. But it is not just the loaves of tangy sourdough or the menagerie of sweet and savory pastries that make Grist a welcome addition to Missoula’s bakery scene. Nor is it the fact that Grist was named a 2023 James Beard Award semifinalist for outstanding bakery. What really sets Grist apart is in the back of the bakery within the sacks of all-organic Montana-grown grain.
Grist co-owners Selden Daume and Dan Venturella each have an extensive background working in bakeries, including at Missoula’s Le Petit Bakehouse where they met and worked together for years before deciding to open their own bakery in 2019. Grist first began in the back of Black Coffee Roasting Company where Selden and Dan installed an oven and some mixers and made bread and pastries for the roasting company’s customers with a plan to find their own spot within five years.
Sticking to that plan, they opened their own retail location in 2024 in the center of town at 520 S. Grant Street. “It's been nice to be able to see people face-to-face,” says Dan. “We didn't really interact with the customers when we were in Black Coffee and all our other accounts were grocery stores or restaurants. We didn’t get to see the person in the back of the deli, or the chef, or people that are tasting and eating our product. As soon as we moved over here, we had all of this great feedback and people saying that the neighborhood needed something like this. The Missoula community just wants to support local businesses and all of our patrons have been incredibly awesome.”
Selden says, “We wanted to carve out something that works for us. We don’t make 1,000 baguettes a day because Le Petit does that really well. We don’t make wedding cakes because Bernice’s is known for that, so everyone just sort of finds their spot. Dan and I wanted to start Grist because we were passionate about using organic grains. We wanted to provide Missoula with that product, and people have been really receptive and excited about it.”
Using only Montana-grown grains such as millet, oats, and barley to make all their breads, and milling it themselves, has been extremely important to Dan and Selden from the beginning. They originally sourced their wheat from a farmer in the Bitterroot Valley, but due to the growth of the business, the majority of their grains now come from Montana Milling, Inc., a co-op of local farmers certified organic by the United States and the Montana departments of agriculture, but they continue to work with individual farmers whenever possible.
You will always find the retail bakery stocked with three types of sourdough breads. Along with their signature sourdough, there’s the Miller’s Choice, a hearty multi-grain porridge bread made from ingredients such as hard red and soft white wheat, flax, brown rice, and sorghum syrup perfect for an elevated BLT or simply slathered with creamy butter. Their Bianco is an Italian ciabatta-style sourdough best enjoyed dipped in a fragrant olive oil laced with savory herbs. “We also have a variety of different breads available every day,” says Dan. “We make a beer rye, a fennel sesame rye, a potato onion sourdough, and a German six-grain bread called Sechskornbrot.”
Other selections include danishes made with seasonal ingredients from asparagus to rhubarb, decadent shortbreads, Kamut (an ancient form of wheat) and cardamom coffee cakes, flaky sourdough croissants, and scones made from heirloom Montana Indian corn and honey berries.
In addition to the grains, Dan and Selden also feature locally-grown seasonal ingredients like cherries, eggs, and squash. “Grist is really about making relationships with farmers, whether it's growing produce for our pastries or growing the wheat and the grain that we like to use,” says Selden. “The more relationships we make, the more we can showcase in the bakery. It’s a nice thing being the size that we are because it allows us to adapt quickly. We use local apricots until we don't have them anymore, then we'll transition to peaches, then to apples and pears. It’s really fun to cycle through what’s in season.”
Adding to the local distinction, every product is made onsite. Grist uses a unique slow fermentation process. Once the mechanical mixers stir together the flours, water and sourdough, everything is made by hand with the dough being punched, formed, put into baskets to rise, and then allowed to ferment overnight. Selden says, “What makes us different is we extend out the process of making bread. That long fermentation gives the bread a great flavor, but it also makes it easier on your belly to digest. Some people with wheat sensitivities seem to have better luck eating our breads.”
Dan adds, “You can view fermentation as a kind of pre-digestion so the sourdough is actually breaking down the gluten in the bread and digesting some of those things. In a quick ferment like in a mass market bread, they try to pump out as much as possible in the shortest amount of time. It’s not doing any of that predigesting, so if you're having a sensitivity to wheat, you’re probably just not getting help digesting it.”
Dan and Selden have plans and ideas for expanding their selections and building Grist, but the simplicity of making bread and running a community bakery is what keeps them coming to work every day. “We are bakers because we like baking bread,” says Selden. “It’s nice that we can work on the business a little bit and grow, but we're still doing the day-to-day activities. That's nice for our staff, and it's also nice for us to feel that accomplishment when the bread comes out. We start with flour, water, and salt, and sourdough, mix it all together and by the end of the day we get this full rack of bread.”
"Dan and I wanted to start Grist because we were passionate about using organic grains."