By Karl Kessler

Once an obscure feed grain, this ancient relative of wheat is coming on strong in health-food markets.

Premium prices and surging popularity in health-food circles are sparking interest in a close but nearly forgotten relative of the wheats that are familiar to most farmers.

Spelt, which today is officially classified as a subspecies of common wheat, was one of the first grains to be domesticated. Archeologists believe it was cultivated in parts of Europe during the Stone Age and in England by about 1000 B.C. During medieval times, spelt bread graced the tables of aristocracy while most of the population ate rye bread.

Swiss immigrants are credited with bringing spelt to North America. Until recently, it was used here almost exclusively as feed instead of food.

Although U.S. spelt acreage peaked at more than 600,000 acres in 1909, it has long since declined to a fraction of that amount. A tough hull that's difficult to separate from the kernel is blamed for much of the decline. Despite its higher protein, spelt simply lost out to easier-threshing, better-yielding wheats.

Looking Up

Within the past decade, however, spelt's fortunes have begun to turn. Thanks in no small part to the efforts of a few major processors, this obscure grain has recently become a top-selling organic and health-food commodity.

Don Stinchcomb, president of Michigan-based Purity Foods Inc., says health-food fans appreciate spelt's unique nutritional qualities. According to Stinchcomb, spelt is higher in B vitamins and fiber than ordinary bread wheats and has larger amounts of both simple and complex carbohydrates.

Stinchcomb's firm introduced its first spelt products in 1990 and now heads a growing list of companies that offer spelt foods. Purity's current product line includes nine types of spelt pasta, whole-grain and white flours, a pancake-and-muffin mix, and mixes for bread machines. Their major markets are health and organic-food stores.

Stinchcomb says spelt-product sales doubled each of the first three years Purity offered them and they've increased another 50 percent each year since. Purity's sales of spelt products last year were expected to total close to 10 million pounds.

Taste Appeal

Mark Novak, head of purchasing and business development at Texas-based Arrowhead Mills, says a mild, pleasant taste is another plus for spelt. "When people try it, they like it, and they came back for more," he says.

Arrowhead Mills began selling spelt products six years ago and has watched sales climb a solid 20 percent a year since. Current products include whole-grain spelt flour, a bread-machine mix for home use and a flaked, ready to eat cereal. Novak says the spelt flakes are one of Arrowhead's best selling cereals.

Along with its nutritional assets and taste appeal, spelt is acquiring a reputation as an alternative for some individuals who have wheat allergies. However, the jury is still our on whether most people with wheat allergies can tolerate eating spelt.

Disappointed

Barry Josephson, a New York physician who specializes in allergy problems, says he once had high hopes for spelt. But clinical experience and a couple of experiments he conducted convinced him that spelt is too similar to common bread wheats to be a safe substitute.

"Many patients with wheat allergy may be able to tolerate spelt now and then," Josephson says. "But it they consume it on a regular basis, sooner or later it probably will break through and they will experience the symptoms of wheat allergy."

Nevertheless, a growing number appear to be taking that chance. Don Stinchcomb says many of the thousands of customers who purchase spelt products form Purity Foods have some type of wheat allergy, but he knows of only 16 who have reported having an allergic reaction to spelt.

Howard Graves, owner-operator of Berlin Natural Bakery in Berlin, Ohio, says he "has stacks of letters from people who can't tolerate wheat at all, yet they're happily eating spelt."

In addition to several wheat-flour products, Graves sells five different breads, as well as buns for hamburgers and hot dogs, all made with spelt flour milled right at his bakery . Daily shipments of his fresh and frozen spelt products go to every state east of the Mississippi and north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Despite price premiums of about 75 cents a loaf, Graves say spelt breads now account for about two-thirds of his total sales and have been responsible for most of the bakery's rapid growth since he began marketing spelt products four years ago.

Growing Interest

Predictably, growing interest in spelt foods has stimulated interest in growing the crop. Graves says he gets many calls from farmers who would like to sell him spelt. Very little of it is good enough for baking, however.

"You can't just grow this crop then find a market for it," Graves warns. "Few elevators will take spelt, and if you don't have a high-quality product, you probably won't be able to sell it - at least not for human food."

Graves advises starting with certified seed. "Then you have to fertilize it and treat it like a high-quality crop," he adds. Graves insists on a good test weight, high protein, and no sprout damage. Like most others who are targeting health-food markets, he prefers organically grown spelt. But that can be difficult to find.

The need to rotate crops tends to limit spelt acreage on organic farms. Charles and Heather Grant, for example say 30 acres of spelt is about as much as they can work into their four-year rotation. The Grant's fall-plant spelt into plowed-down red clover on their organic farm near Sombra, Ont. Organic soybeans and spring grains round out their rotation.

Charles says growing spelt organically is much like growing wheat, but somewhat easier. "Spelt seems to do fine on the nitrogen from a crop of red clover," he says. "That isn't always true of organic wheat."

He adds that spelt is a little trickier to combine than wheat, and requires more space for an equivalent amount of weight because the hull stays with the kernel. On Grant's farm, spelt has yielded about 25 percent less than organic wheat, but most years price premiums have more than made up the difference.

How long that might continue is anybody's guess. Food-quality, organically grown spelt is still a fairly minor crop. Even though demand is booming and supplies are tight right now, it wouldn't take much overproduction of spelt to send prices into a tailspin. But for a while, at least, this old grain could be a new source of profit for some farmers.

The Furrow
January 1996