The first batches of cookies are announced for within a year. “The wheat will be processed by a family Breton mill providing organic grindings and the biscuits will be made by an organic biscuit maker”, announce the project partners. Their ambition is to establish this new activity in Ille-et-Vilaine, a department which has several artisanal mills. The official launch took place at the organic fair “The Earth is our profession”, in Retiers (Ille-et-Vilaine).
It is the culmination of work carried out for more than 20 years by the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE) and its subsidiary Agri Obtentions, which has become the leader in the organic seed market in 40 years.
Wheat selected in Pacé
The selection was carried out with the support of Gaec de la Mandardière, in Pacé, near Rennes. This made it possible to identify “wheat 100% organic biscuit makers, that is to say that even the parents of the line have not been in contact with phytosanitary products, which is unique in Europe”, underlines Julie Boulard, director of Interbio Bretagne (IBB), a structure which coordinated the actors of the project.
The partners (Inrae, Agri Obtentions, the seed broker Thierry Hache, etc.) during the launch of the new processing sector for organic biscuit wheat selected near Rennes by Inrae. DR
Gwastell (“cake” in Breton), this is the name of this variety of soft wheat, registered in 2019 in the French catalog of organic farming. Additional tests carried out in the technological analysis laboratory have confirmed its biscuit-making qualities, namely “a weak retraction, a limited spreading and resistance to swelling.
“We are at the pilot stage,” explains Olivier Leflaëc, head of West business development at Agri-Obtentions. The first hectares will be sown this fall for the 2025 harvest.
Another bread project
This project clearly illustrates the desire of organic farmers to build solid sectors to secure production. “We know how to produce organically. But transform and sell well, less”, underlined Fabien Tigeot, co-president of the Regional Federation of Agrobiologists of Brittany (FRAB), on the eve of the show.
Another initiative is supported by the Breton Organic Flour Collective, which brings together nearly fifty partners (farmers, millers and processors) including Greniers bio d’Armorique. Together, they are working on the relocation, to Brittany, of production of milling quality organic wheat, this time intended for bakeries.
