When Roaring Fork Mill sprouted in 2022, it was a small passion project. Founder Jacob Trumbull comes from a background in conservation and sustainable agriculture. He and his wife, Nicole, started stone-milling grains a few years after they settled into the Roaring Fork Valley. The business started as mill-to-order batches, but has since taken off.
“Regenerative agriculture was a logical next step when beginning to grow heritage grains in the Roaring Fork Valley,” Trumbull told The Sopris Sun.
In the beginning, Trumbull filled small orders using a mill that could grind up to 10 pounds of grain in an hour, sourcing the grain from farms around Colorado. By 2024, he upgraded to a mill with a capacity of over 200 pounds per hour, and secured the first regenerative organic certified mill designation in the Mountain West, according to Claire Duncombe of the Colorado Grain Chain, a state nonprofit and network of grain businesses.
Trumbull has steadily expanded his network of grain producers in the state. In spring 2025, around 25% of the grain he milled was sourced from within the Valley — the rest came from around Colorado.
In the past year, the business has continued to flourish. This spring, Roaring Fork Mill was awarded the Greg Steltenpohl Pragmatic Visionary Award for its efforts to build a plant-centric food system grounded in personal, community and planetary health, according to the Colorado Grain Chain story. The award, named in honor of the founder of Odwalla Inc., supports early-stage entrepreneurs with grants.
Roaring Fork Mill will use its funding to provide early-season financing for farmers growing heirloom grains.
“It’s a healthy way to support our farming partners,” Trumbull told Colorado Grain Chain. “They’re our friends. We see them every day. That’s the beautiful thing about creating a local food system. Their well-being is intertwined with ours.”
Trumbull stated that another proud accomplishment was receiving a national sustainability award from Startup CPG in 2025, for bringing to market the first regenerative organic certified flour — Roaring Fork Mill’s rye flour.
“Not only was it an excellent testament to the high quality of our flour,” he said, “but it gave a kick in the butt to the flour industry as a whole; leading to other mills starting to produce regenerative organic certified flours.”
Roaring Fork Mill was also recently granted a lease for the Wheatley Open Space acreage in Old Snowmass, which is overseen by Pitkin County Open Space and Aspen Valley Land Trust. The lease adds more than 20 acres to the over 53 acres of local grain production Roaring Fork Mill was already working with. At the end of last year, the business had increased its annual production to over 60,000 pounds of flour, all with sustainable practices.
Trumbull credits Pitkin County Open Space and Trails for “helping farmers in the area do impactful work.” He noted the aptness of the Wheatley Open Space for grains, and shared that Roaring Fork Mill will focus on seed cultivation on that land.
“We’ll be trialing a variety of heritage grains to determine what’s suitable for our growing climate,” he said. “Down the line, we envision redistributing these seeds to other farmers in the Valley who are interested in growing grain.”
Trumbull sees local agriculture as something that benefits the economy and environment.
“Heritage grains are climate resilient,” he explained, “taking less inputs to grow and leading to healthier topsoil. Ultimately, our goal is to not only leave the land in which we’re growing grains better off, but to improve the overall viability of the soil and land in which it’s being grown.”
Grain grown close to restaurants and consumers requires less transportation time and money, is fresher and cycles more revenue into local economies, according to a blog from sustainableagriculture.eco
Roaring Fork Mill’s regionally centered production and local processing also yields nutritional benefits. Because stone mills grind grains at lower speeds and temperatures than industrial roller mills, they yield flour with significantly more natural oil, germ and bran, along with higher nutrient contents and flavor. And, according to Trumbull, the local and sustainable production helps protect consumers and land alike from ill effects of industrial pesticides.
“I wish people knew what they’re ingesting when they eat conventional grains that are sprayed with pesticides and herbicides,” he said to Colorado Grain Chain. “It doesn’t all wash off, so traces are left in the food and that’s part of what leads to gluten sensitivity.”
A common chemical in U.S. industrial agriculture, glyphosate, has been labeled as a probable human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer since 2015. While the Department of Agriculture and other government entities have disputed that classification, the chemical is banned or restricted in most of the European Union, most of Canada and many Central and South American and Asian countries.
Trumbull also emphasized that regenerative agriculture practices help protect ecosystems, as heritage and ancient regionally-based grains benefit areas where they have historically grown. These strains often populate deeper roots, which improve soil quality and can conserve water even during drought conditions.
“We need to continue to show that producing climate resilient crops has a strong economic viability,” Trumbull explained. “As we have less and less access to water, we can either choose or be forced to adapt our growing practices. We want the conversation to continue about water intensive crops versus climate resilient options that may have a stronger economic impact on local farms in the long term.”
You can learn more about Roaring Fork Mill at roaringforkmill.com