Our story begins on Öland in the 1850s. Sweden is a poor country, and many people cross the Atlantic in the hope of a better life in America.

The young man who laid the foundations for our milling tradition was called Anders Nyberg. He was the son of the farmer Jonas Andersson, who in the final years of his life worked at a steam-powered sawmill – a sawmill that one day proved to be his undoing, when disaster struck at the mill.

Johan Nyberg, a second-generation miller, with his family.

Anders learnt the trade of cartwrighting and carpentry in his youth – skills that came in handy when he decided to build his own windmill. The mill he built had two pairs of millstones: one pair for sifting and one pair for grinding.

That is where our miller’s tale begins – on the island of the blue-tinged expanses.

Öland wheat: a heritage variety that is particularly close to our hearts given our family history.

On his father’s side, Anders came from a genuine farming family with deep roots in the local community. For centuries, they had ‘lived on the homestead’ – on small, self-sufficient farms with a little farming and a few animals – and had fairly limited contact with places outside their own parish.

Some in the family had held positions of trust in the local community; they had served on the court or been parish elders. A job that was as honourable as it was demanding – and often poorly paid. For the farmer, this meant both fulfilling his duties to the village and keeping the farm going at the same time.

Most, however, led a simple life on their plots of land, where they tilled the soil and lived off what it yielded.

On the other side of the strait. The journey took Anders’ son Johan from Öland to the Småland mainland towards the end of the 19th century.

We know very little about Anders today. We know more about his son Johan Nyberg, who followed in his father’s footsteps.