Producer Profile: De La Terre Bakery

Photo: Courtesy of De La Terre Bakery

When Chef Jan Campbell-Luxton was working in professional kitchens, his least favourite food to work with was bread.  “I found it too boring,” he chuckles, looking back on his experiences.  Only upon discovering 100% sourdough breads did he really begin to get creative and start to love baking bread.  “I realized that my whole disdain for bread came from misunderstanding it.”

Campbell-Luxton’s bakery De La Terre is located in Vineland, around the Niagara region.  Their 9-worker operation is kept busy with producing baked goods, artisanal breads, cookies, croissants, granola, and biscotti all over the region.  The Sorauren Farmers' Market is the only place in Toronto that they personally vend from (though you can get their bread on the menu and for purchase from the Monteforte stand at Scadding Court’s Live Local Marketplace).  Other towns that have De La Terre goods include Hamilton, St. Catherines, Oakville, Stratford, Dundas, Niagara-On-The-Lake, Georgetown, Ancaster, Beamsville, and Burlington. 

Photo: Courtesy of De La Terre Bakery

De La Terre operates on a philosophy that’s rooted in local, small-scale production.  They aim to ensure good prices for the local farmers who provide their grains, encourage viable farming practices for current and future farmers, and provide top-quality products for customers.  “There’s a reason why our bread is expensive.  Go ahead, we want you to ask why it costs $6 a loaf.  It’s because it’s all done by hand,” Campbell-Luxton goes on to explain.  He is proud that De La Terre works with small-scale farmers who are located nearby.  Sometimes that means taking big risks too.  Last year they worked with a Mennonite farmer who uses only horses and no machinery.  It felt good to learn about why horses were used, and to know that there were zero emissions released in producing that grain.  But this year that same farmer had a terrible crop and some of his grains were completely wiped out.  Luckily, there was another farmer up the road from the bakery who had milled-on-the-farm whole wheat, and De La Terre began working with him.  “People need to know what farmers’ real costs are.   And agricultural work can be heartbreaking.”  Campbell-Luxton knows this on a personal level -  his father farms wheat.  “We’re working towards collaborating together, being involved in the process from seed to loaf.”

De La Terre specializes in artisanal sourdough breads, and particularly 100% sourdough varieties.  “I love the alchemy of bread-making, from start to finish,” says Campbell-Luxton.  He goes on to describe the satisfaction of starting with his simple ingredients and turning out a smooth, elastic dough.  From getting the grain from local farmers to taking fresh loaves out of the oven to talking with customers at farmer’s markets, it’s a labour of love.  And you can tell that the folks at De La Terre really love what they do.  You can taste it in their beautiful, delicious bread.