Gabe Stark
Reporter

Earth Touch has established its new headquarters in Gallatin after purchasing the former McBee family grain facility. The move creates a central location for its growing Black Einkorn business while expanding the agricultural services it offers to producers across northwest Missouri.

The company purchased the facility in late September 2025 and has spent the past several months preparing it for operation. Earth Touch President Jon Thomas said the location provides office space, grain storage and room for continued growth.

“We’ve been moving in and getting everything ready to go,” Thomas said. “It was a great opportunity for us, and I think it was a great opportunity for the McBee family as well.”

The Gallatin headquarters serves as the company’s main office and includes approximately 840,000 bushels of grain storage. In addition to producing its Black Einkorn products, Earth Touch offers grain handling, custom fertilizer blending, livestock feed production and custom farm services, including planting, seed drilling, fertilizer application, harvesting and hauling.

Although the company provides a variety of agricultural services, Thomas said its primary focus is Black Einkorn, an ancient grain that has gained popularity among consumers looking for minimally processed foods and alternatives to modern wheat.

According to Earth Touch, Einkorn is the world’s oldest cultivated wheat. Unlike modern wheat, which has been extensively hybridized over the past century, the company said Einkorn has retained a much simpler genetic structure.

Thomas explained that modern wheat varieties were bred to produce larger harvests, but that process also created a more complex gluten structure. Earth Touch emphasizes that people with celiac disease should continue to avoid wheat products, but Thomas said many customers with non-celiac gluten sensitivities have found they can enjoy Einkorn without the discomfort they experience from conventional wheat.

Earth Touch grows a naturally pigmented variety known as Black Einkorn. During processing, the company carefully selects the darkest kernels, which Thomas said contain the highest concentrations of naturally occurring anthocyanins—the same type of antioxidants responsible for the color found in foods such as blueberries.

“When plants experience certain natural stresses, they produce pigments,” Thomas said. “Those pigments also increase antioxidants and anthocyanins.”

According to the company, Black Einkorn is naturally high in protein, dietary fiber and iron while also providing lutein and manganese. Because the grain has not undergone the extensive hybridization of commercial wheat, Earth Touch says it retains a simpler gluten structure while offering a rich, nutty flavor that many customers prefer over traditional whole wheat flour.

“We’ve been told by multiple mills across the country that our Black Einkorn has the best flavor profile of any Einkorn they’ve worked with,” Thomas said.

Earth Touch currently grows more than 500 acres of Einkorn each year. The grain is cleaned, dehulled, milled and packaged at the company’s nearby processing facility before being shipped to customers throughout the United States.

Customers can purchase whole berries to mill at home or buy ready-to-use flour through the company’s retail store in Gallatin or online. Earth Touch also produces cookies, crackers and pasta made with Black Einkorn and plans to expand its product line with baking mixes for pancakes, biscuits and other recipes.

“It is more expensive than regular wheat,” Thomas said. “But you’re also getting two to three times the nutritional value pound for pound.”

The company traces its roots to the mid-1990s when founder Roger Billings and agricultural specialist Don Finn began researching ways to improve both soil health and human nutrition. Their work eventually led Earth Touch into producing ancient grains as interest in healthier food options continued to grow. Thomas said that mission still guides the company today.

“If I could share one thing, it’s the mission of Earth Touch, and that’s really to help people feel their best,” Thomas said. “There’s no one magic thing. It’s really a lifestyle. Healthy food, exercise, sleep and taking care of yourself all work together.”

Earth Touch recently welcomed community members to its new headquarters at 103 Industrial Parkway during an open house, where visitors learned about the company’s Black Einkorn products, toured the facility and explored the agricultural services now offered from the Gallatin location.