From farm to table: Olathe students test flour mixes for Kansas company

If two strangers hadn’t sat together on an airplane flight, Olathe students would have missed an opportunity they got last spring: to conduct hands-on research for a real company based in Kansas.

One of those passengers was Haley Sestak, who then taught baking and pastry arts at Olathe East High School. The other was Tim Webster, the CEO of a Kansas company called Farmer Direct Foods, who happened to be reviewing a presentation about flour and baking mixes.

Ben Mantooth, vice-president of brand and digital marketing for Farmer Direct, calls it serendipity.

“They struck up a conversation on the flight and kept in contact over the next several months discussing how the students could help Farmer Direct develop a new line of products for the company,” Mantooth said by email.

The conversations bore fruit during the 2022 spring semester, when baking and pastry arts students from three Olathe high schools — East, West and North — tested recipes using different flour blends from Farmer Direct. Mantooth said the partnership will continue this fall in at least one high school, though its scope has yet to be determined.

The company, which recently moved its headquarters to Overland Park, produces whole-grain flour in cooperation with wheat farmers who subscribe to sustainable, dryland farming methods. Those practices, the company says on its website, save 30 million to 40 million gallons of water each year. Farmer Direct’s mill is in New Cambria, Kansas, which is outside Salina.

The Olathe students made pancakes using consistent instructions, measurements and environments, varying only the mixture of flours, Olathe Public Schools said in a news release. The research was designed to help Farmer Direct Foods develop a “bread blend” and a “pancake blend” to sell.

“We tested different combinations of red wheat flour, whole white wheat flour and patent flour in order to see which one we liked the best due to appearance, aroma, taste and texture,” Olathe West student Nate Parks, who comes from a family of chefs, said in the news release.

“As a future chef, I am interested in seeing all sides of the process. I am excited to help grow a business that is doing it right by keeping it local and maintaining the nutritional value of the wheat.”

Mantooth said the students provided qualitative feedback as well as a recommendation for the recipes that Farmer Direct should use for each of the mixes, which the company is starting to create this fall.

“Not only are we thrilled to provide a real-world learning experience for our students that helps our local Kansas small businesses,” Sestak said in the district release, “but we as teachers love that it is creating opportunities for students to grow Market Value Assets (skills valued by industry) and introduce them to various career opportunities within the food industry.”

Also among the participants was Olathe East student Molly Barber. She was considering the medical field, but Sestak’s class opened other possibilities. She saw her teacher’s enthusiasm, the career possibilities in food science and “even just …. the visual of gluten pulling apart.”

The Farmer Direct project, she said, will help her decide whether food science is the right career choice or not.

Barber’s classmate, Mikayla Ezala, learned how much flour affects the taste and texture of baked goods.

“I’ve loved being able to experiment with these mixes,” Ezala said, “and I’m excited to do more hands-on work with Farmer Direct Foods because of how they have taken us students’ opinions so highly and to heart.”

Sestak, however, did not return to Olathe East this fall. She left the district to work for Farmer Direct Foods as a sales and product development specialist. “She is now helping us build relationships with local bakeries throughout Kansas and Missouri,” Mantooth said.