Milling a Dream

Bob Moore is easily recognized. As founder of Bob’s Red Mill, his face appears on the packaging of each whole grain food his company produces in Milwaukie, Ore. (pop. 20,490).

In person, Moore looks just like the picture, with his trademark beard, square glasses, ivy cap and friendly expression. But what the image can’t depict is the excitement that the 76-year-old entrepreneur exudes when he talks about his business.

"Isn’t this great?" asks Moore, smiling while fresh wheat flour fills his hand from one of eight stone grinding mills located in his company’s milling complex. "Oh, I love this," he adds.

Moore was introduced to milling in the late 1960s when he read John Goffe’s Mill, a 1948 book about a young man who restores his family’s old grist mill. "It was a milestone," he says. "It gave me a definite connection and a focus that this is what I need to be doing."

At the time, Moore managed an auto service center in Redding, Calif., and his only link to whole grain foods came from his wife, Charlee, who loved to cook with them. He soon set out to learn more about the centuries-old milling process, in which a 2-ton circular stone crushes grain by turning slowly against a stationary bottom stone. Unlike modern methods, the process allows all of the nutrients to remain in the resulting flour.

In 1973, Moore, with his wife’s support, committed himself to his dream. He purchased a set of 19th-century millstones from a defunct North Carolina mill, and within a year he and Charlee opened Moores’ Flour Mill in Redding. The business prospered, and four years later the couple decided to retire. They subsequently sold the mill to one of their three sons and moved to Portland, Ore.

But Bob Moore wasn’t quite ready to retire. Shortly after moving, he came upon an old vacant flour mill near Oregon City (pop. 25,754), and his passion was rekindled. "I guess we had worked so hard to build that first mill that I wasn’t ready to be done with it yet," he says. The Moores bought the mill and started a new whole grain business, naming it Bob’s Red Mill.

After 10 years of growing the small company, tragedy struck when an arson fire destroyed the mill. But Moore was determined to keep the business alive and rebuilt in nearby Milwaukie. "That was a hard time for us," he says. "But we pulled together. We worked around the clock, and we never completely shut down. We were fully operating within six months."

Today, business is booming at Bob’s Red Mill, where products are milled with a combination of century-old stones as well as new stones imported from Denmark. The company employs 115 people on a 6.5-acre campus composed of a packaging and labeling department, a distribution center, a restaurant, and a visitors center that sells more than 300 products, including buckwheat pancake mix, cereal, whole wheat flour and flaxseed meal. Products also are sold in health food stores and grocery stores across the United States and Canada, with sales increasing steadily since 2000. Moore expects the trend to continue as more people learn the health benefits of whole grain foods. He’s quick to point out that research suggests that a whole grain diet can lower cholesterol and prevent heart disease.

"He wants people to be healthier," says Marilyn Ames, a 15-year mill employee who works in the orders and transportation departments. Weekly staff meetings don’t start until everyone is served a bowl of hot cereal, and employees are invited to participate in a cardiovascular health seminar taught onsite.

"He cares so much about the people who work here," Ames says. "He wants us all to be healthier. He wants us to feel better and live a long life, and he talks about it every chance he gets."

To learn more about Bob’s Red Mill, log on to www.bobsredmill.com or call (800) 349-2173.

Polly Campbell is a freelance writer in Beaverton, Ore.

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