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About Frontiersman Sourdough
Purpose : To fund environmental conservation, food security, public health, and small business growth in Alaska through the sale of handmade and sustainable sourdough starter and baking tools.
Frontiersman Sourdough:
Frontiersman Sourdough was created in 2016 by an environmental scientist and public health manager who was fascinated by Alaska’s sourdough history and the science of microbes in food fermentation. The initial intent was to share sourdough starter with friends and family across the country by producing sourdough starter in a shelf-stable stasis and shipping it coast to coast. Once the concept of creating a small business arose, it was clear that Frontiersman Sourdough could be leveraged to fund charitable giving, improve human health, and support small local businesses; and so it began.
By 2019, our sourdough starter was stocked in Anchorage shops and began to take hold as a ubiquitous gift and pantry staple for locals and tourists alike. Frontiersman Sourdough has grown to supply small retailers across the USA, but we continue to lean on our founding ideals:
We were founded upon environmental and social governance ideals we’d hope to see in all other businesses; including organic ingredients and textiles, significant charitable contributions, handmade quality, scientific quality control, only using zero waste and biodegradable packaging and shipping materials, and a commitment to working with only other small business, never big box stores or Amazon.
To date we’ve employed and supported visual artists, ceramicists, photographers, designers, and woodworkers across the state; primarily university students in Anchorage. We’ve partnered with over 150 different independently owned small businesses and educational institutions; and we’ve donated more than 15% of our profits to environmental conservation, fishing and hunting educational programs, and farm-land trusts to support our great state that inspires people across the globe with it’s grandeur, beauty, adventure, and wild nature.
Our Sourdough Starter:
Our sourdough starter is cultivated in Alaska, shelf stable, made with 100% organic ingredients, and packaged in biodegradable pouches.
The stable nature of our yeast allows you to activate your starter and begin working with sourdough at your convenience; next week or years from now. When you activate your Frontiersman Sourdough Starter, you are waking up the same microbes that we use every day, ensuring that you are baking with an active, healthy, and effective starter.
A portion of all profits are donated to environmental conservation in Alaska.
We are a zero waste company -100% of packaging materials are biodegradable, down to the shipping labels and tape.
All of our products can last a lifetime, but are also technically biodegradable, made of only flour and water, wood, spruce pulp, or cotton.
We only supply small businesses, never box stores or Amazon
We provide customer support. Customers from across the country reach out to us with sourdough questions - we’re happy to answer.
Sourdough History in Alaska:
The early ‘frontiersmen’ that came to Alaska maintained a sourdough starter to leaven their bread. Frontiersmen in Alaska would wear a pouch of starter around their neck to keep it from freezing in the cold Alaskan winter nights. Today, old, grizzled Alaskans are known as “Sourdoughs” in homage to the prospectors, miners, and trappers that explored Alaska.
Our sourdough starter can remain in it’s dormant shelf-stable state for years. Alaskan frontiersman would use sourdough starter to fill gaps in their log cabins. Folks in present day Alaska have collected some of this dormant sourdough starter and made bread with it! The most impressive example of baking with dormant yeast comes from archeologists in 2019 baking a loaf of bread with sourdough collected from ancient Egyptian pottery. The oldest known sourdough was scraped from Ancient Egyptian pottery, reaching back ~5,500 years.
Charitable Giving
A portion of all profits are donated to environmental conservation in Alaska, including. In fact, we’ve donated more than 15% of our profits to environmental conservation, fishing and hunting educational programs, and farm-land trusts, including but not limited to: Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center; Outdoor Heritage Foundation; Alaska Farmland Trust, WWF; and Nature Conservancy
Together we can protect Alaska’s awe inspiring landscape of mountains, glaciers, rivers, seas, forests, tundra, and rich wildlife that are all invaluable.
Sustainable Products and Packaging
All of our shipping and packaging materials are all biodegradable
Our Artisanal Alaskan Sourdough is made with 100% organic ingredients and packaged in biodegradable pouches.
Our Woodcrafts are made of sustainably sourced woods by local artisans in Alaska
Our Tea Towels and Aprons are made of 100% organic and fair trade certified materials in partnership with a B-Corp.
Our Bannetons are made of sustainably harvested spruce wood
Our Hoodies are made of 100% organic cotton.
We operate in Anchorage, AK , the ancestral homeland of the Dena'ina peoples.
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