At Baker Island, ‘Gluten Free’ Means Good Eating
By Tara Kelly
Photographs by Sabrina Eberhard

“Can a Cookie Change the World?” That’s the tagline for Baker Island Foods, Anna Hall’s specialty food company. The first thing you might notice is that all the products are gluten-free, which is important; but her passion is the naturally wheat-free heritage grains she uses, and her efforts to reintroduce them back into the mainstream.   

Hall’s epiphany began more than 12 years ago, after she attended a lecture on food sensitivities. It hadn’t previously occurred to her that wheat might be the culprit behind her migraines and aching joints. 

As she started to explore wheat-based substitutes, she discovered that many products still had additives, a ton of sugar, xanthum gum, and other ingredients she didn’t particularly like. Around the same time, she was introduced to heritage grains through the Maine Grain Alliance and its annual Kneading Conference in Skowhegan. “I was just blown away by all these grains; they were non-GMO, better for the soil and regenerative, easier to digest. But it seemed not many people were using them,” she says. She set out to incorporate them into her diet. 

Hall doesn’t have a culinary background, but her dedication to heritage grains drove into the kitchen. Her daughter, Violet, says, “She taught herself to bake so she could have the products that weren’t out there.” 

“The learning curve was steep,” Hall says. “One success is the product of a thousand failures.”

Hall is a bit of a scientist, doing her own research, looking for interesting flavor combinations, and creating her own recipes. Consistent with her focus on heritage grains, Hall uses oat flour, buckwheat flour, and teff in her cookie doughs, and oats, puffed millet, amaranth, and sorghum in the granola. 

Hall and her family started life in Millbrook as weekend residents, but when her son enrolled at Millbrook School, Hall shifted to Millbrook full-time, where she was already embedded in the food community. 

Her friends Tom and Ken, at Stonewood Farm, introduced her to Dan Kish. “He was the executive chef at Panera, and had a commercial kitchen in Millbrook,” Hall says. Kish asked Hall to bring him a sample.

“He was doing small-batch production, and added my cookie doughs to his list. I started selling at local shops: Marona’s Market, Quattro’s, Big Rock. That was my beta testing. It was very small-scale, but it was proof of concept.” A few years later, she added a signature granola. 

Expanding her product line coincided with the need to find a dedicated gluten-free facility where she could have hands-on oversight. “We had an abandoned greenhouse on our property that needed to be renovated, and it occurred to me I could have a kitchen on site. It’s the natural next step—but it’s a real leap of faith,” Hall says. It’s a faith that is likely to be rewarded, as she moves into a state-of-the-art kitchen, and whips up old-world grains into gluten-free goodies.—bakerislandfoods.com