Churchville, N.Y.— On the quiet Main Street in Churchville, there is a small yellow house. Most people driving by probably wouldn’t notice it or recognize its value.
The small yellow house is the office to a big flour business, one that’s been around for more than 200 years. The towering bins and silos peek out from the tops of the trees.
The flour from this plant can be found in some big brand products, including different varieties of donuts from Dunkin’ Donuts.
“Dunkin’ Donuts is pretty well recognized,” says Francios Lechance, the mill’s plant manager. “It's nice to know that there is that connection, that local connection to Dunkin’ Donuts.”
The mill uses locally grown wheat, which is milled into pastry flour and sent to the Otis Spunkmyer plant on Chester Street in Rochester. Otis Spunkmyer makes donut mixes out of the flour and then sells them to Dunkin’ Donuts stores along the east coast of the United States.
On Friday, June 1, many people stopped by area Dunkin’ Donut stores to celebrate National Donut Day. People were surprised to hear about the donuts’ local connection.
“I think that's awesome that we can say from Rochester, we're actually contributing to the companies in the area,” says Priscilla Parker of Rochester. “I know it's a national chain so I didn’t really think of anything really being local here regarding Dunkin’ Donuts.”
Samuel Church, the founder of Churchville, built the mill in 1810. Since then there have been several different owners of the mill and the name has changed many times. However, it’s location in Churchville has not.
“There are not a whole lot of businesses in this community, but this is one that's really had some staying power,” says Lechance. “We have over 200 years of making the same product that we've been making all that time.”
The mill is one of the oldest businesses in Monroe County. Though Rochester may be known as the Flour City, Star of the West Milling is the only operating flour mill in the county.
The mill uses 3.7 million bushels of wheat a year and produces more than half a million pounds of flour each day.
