At Mission Pie, we want to support our partner farm, Pie Ranch, in building the capacity to produce more food. We want to help Pie Ranch thrive, and to ensure that Pie Ranch wheat makes its way into every bite of your pie.

Why didn’t Mission Pie buy a combine in California, instead of from Michigan, so far away?
There is vastly more grain production in the Midwest than in California, and these days, very few farms are producing grain on a small scale like at Pie Ranch. Older models of equipment were developed for smaller scale farms like Pie Ranch. This was the closest suitable combine we could find.

Where did you find a combine to buy?
Jered, farmer at Pie Ranch, searched the internet and found this combine featured on Tractorhouse.com, offered by John and Leroy Tomlinson. The Tomlinsons sell new and used farm equipment in Marlette, Michigan, and had found this well-preserved Allis-Chalmers 66 combine when helping a friend find an older rig for historic demonstration purposes. John was very helpful and patient as we worked toward the decision to purchase the combine. When I asked John Tomlinson about his favorite pie, he replied: “I like just about any kind of pie, not a real picky eater, but I guess cherry, blueberry, raspberry, apple would be my favorites.”

How is the combine getting to Pie Ranch?
John Tomlinson lined up a trucking company and negotiated the logistics to move the combine from Michigan to California. Douglass Maust is the trusted and experienced trucker who is driving westward, towing the combine as a wide load. Douglass spent 39_ years driving a 50-ft refrigerated truck full of eggs (up to 27,000 dozen eggs in a load!) from Michigan to other parts of the country. Just this year, he left the family egg business and 700,000 laying hens and started hauling other loads on his new 48-ft Kenworth flatbed. Douglass likes pie, too, and we’re tracking his progress and pie eating as he and the combine make their way westward through pleasant phone calls each evening. We look forward to introducing Douglass to Pie Ranch’s 180 laying hens.

Still, isn’t it up to farmers to build farms and for city folks to just buy the food once it’s grown?

• Consider this: Farming requires a lot of upfront investment and a long wait while crops mature – sometimes more than a year or two with trees and vines – before farmers can begin to recover those costs.
• Urban restaurants and markets increasingly sing the praises of local, fresh and sustainably produced foods, but the marketplace doesn’t make it very easy to directly support local sustainable farming operations, up front where many farmers need it most.
• Finally, there is simply more flow of capital in a thriving urban area like San Francisco’s Mission District than in Pie Ranch’s rural economy from which to draw this support.

  We’re pretty sure we’re the only pie shop in San Francisco that owns a combine.
  THANK YOU MISSION PIE SUPPORTERS!!