How it started

We didn’t start as a bakery. We started as a family that wanted to eat better — and couldn’t find what we were looking for at the grocery store.

The bread had 25 ingredients. The tomatoes tasted like water. The labels were confusing and the supply chains were invisible. We didn’t know who grew our food, how far it traveled, or what was done to it between the field and the shelf.

So Mike started growing vegetables on a small plot behind the house, and Angie started baking bread for the family. At some point, our neighbors started asking if they could buy some.

That was the beginning.

What We Do Now

A sourdough bakery and market garden on our land in Quitman.

Today, Gillett Farmstead is a sourdough bakery and market garden on our land in Quitman, Texas. Angie bakes heritage grain sourdough every week. We grow seasonal produce in our market garden. And we bring it all to three Saturday farmers markets, two REKO markets, and two retail stores across northeast Texas.

Our bread uses heritage grains — White Sonora and Rouge de Bordeaux — wheat varieties that existed for centuries before modern agriculture replaced them with high-yield commodity strains. These grains have more flavor, more nutrients, and a different character than anything you'll find on a grocery shelf.

Every loaf is naturally leavened with a live sourdough starter and long-fermented for 24 hours or more. The ingredient list: flour, water, salt. That's it. No commercial yeast. No dough conditioners. No preservatives. No shortcuts.

Our produce is the same story. Grown in Quitman, picked this week, sold this weekend. Varieties chosen for taste, not for surviving a truck ride.

What we believe food should be

At the market, people ask us questions the grocery store can never answer. What’s in this? When was it baked? Where did the flour come from? Who grew these tomatoes?

We like those questions. We can answer all of them.

That's not a radical idea. It's just an old one.

🏆 Best in Show · Hot Pepper Festival · 2025

Jalapeño Cheddar Sourdough — Best in Show

In 2025, Angie’s Jalapeño Cheddar Sourdough took Best in Show at the Hot Pepper Festival in Palestine, Texas. We’re proud of that — not because awards are the point, but because when your bread has three ingredients, there’s nowhere for quality to hide. It either stands up or it doesn’t.

Ours stands up.

Find us at market this Saturday. We'll be the ones with the flour on our aprons and the bread you can smell from three booths away.

Find Us at Market This Saturday →