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Modern Mills and why it is hard to figure out where that flour is from.

Grains are easy to ship. Mills are efficient when they big. The biggest center for flour milling to the DC area is in Pennsylvania. Since wheat is a national business, most Virginian wheat is probably sold to ConAgra, General Mills and Bay State other big millers.

Wheat gets to you by a combination of truck, rail and barge in a system that has increasing favored who every can move the most grain at one time. Ref. Shipping Wheat

Ref. U.S. flour milling on the rise - effects of increased flour consumption

The largest wheat growing counties in VA happen to be Accomack and Northampton. Edit

Museum Quality and Water Driven Mills

There are some tourist and historical mills, i.e. really old mills being operated for entertainment value. There are a 8 VA water powered mills that are still working. Some are strictly museum pieces, some like Mt Vernon's mill do mill flour, but don't sell in bulk and thus aren't affordable, some of these mills don't buy local grains. Two outstanding mills in this category are Union Mill in Maryland and Wades Mill in Virginia, both sell grain in bulk and buy some or most of their grain locally. Another reason they are interesting because they are zero emission mills for the grinding part of their business. These mills also use stone mills, which give you a whole grain flour (less what you sift out), where modern rolling mills tend to separate the flour into constituent parts so efficiently that modern flour is mostly just starch.

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Bread

There are a lot of bakeries that bake their bread locally (from Panera to Safeway to Whole Foods), but it is uncommon to be able to quickly find out where the flours came from.

Atwaters Atwaters processes their bread in Baltimore. They sell at several farmers markets. They get their flours from Small Valley Mill in PA, Lindley Mills in Graham, NC.

Chesapeake Fields

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Flour and Corn Meal

Virginia

Wade's Mill
55 Kennedy Wade Mill Loop
Raphine, VA 24472

The grain comes from different sources. The wheat and rye is grown about 30 miles from the mill. The yellow corn comes from a local farmer's co-op (although not sure where their corn comes from), the buckwheat comes from North Dakota and the white corn comes from Nebraska. Not certified organic, but the hard red winter wheat for bread flour has no pesticides or herbicides on the wheat fields and the mill uses no chemicals or preservative in its products.

Moutoux Orchard
15290 Purcellville Road
Purcellville, VA 20132

Moutoux Has flour, BUT, you need to be a member of the CSA program (Community Supported Agriculture). It's like food by subscription.

100% Loudon County grown and milled, no pesticides. Whole Wheat and Rye. Whole Wheat is pastry flour, suitable for quick breads, pie crusts, etc. Probably the most local of the various local DC flour sources.

Byrd Mill
Ashland, VA 23005

Byrd's flour is from Hannover County, most conventionally grown from M.S. Terrill and Thomas Stanley. The mill is not water powered, but used to be long ago. They have 5lb bags available by mail order.

Big Spring Mill
Roanoke, Virginia.
Article about how Big Spring Mill used to be able to sell all of its flour within a 75 mile radius and now ships all the way to West Virginia and new York.

Delaware

UNOI Mill in Delaware. Historical mill. No info on how to buy. Sales Dove brand flour.

Pennsylvania

Small Valley Milling They have organic spelt flours and berries.

Daisy Flour Organic, Historical Mill.
As of 2008, Daisy gets their wheat "from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio and Michigan." their "spelt comes from Pennsylvania farms."* (ref. email to company)

Maryland

Union Mills An operating historical that produces some flours for sale. Despite first read of their websitethe look like their mission is education not selling flourthe mill sells souvenir flour (two lb bags), and flour in bulk suitable for locavores and will also sell flour in quantities suitable for a bakery as well.

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Unmilled Grain and Wheat Berries

One way to get around the problem of not having any flours of a particular origin is to buy the unmilled grain and then mill it yourself.

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Georgia

Home Grown Harvest Georgian company, listed because there are so little evidence of unmilled grain sellers anywhere.