Thanks, Gary for this item on greater availability of millets in retail stores. Here are some observations of my own. I'd encourage others to let us know what they're seeing. I've been watching this space - millets on store shelves - for a while, adjunct to grocery shopping. * 2015-17 in Northern Viginia * 2018-pres. in mid Michigan My impression in general is that specialty stores, in which category I'd place Whole Foods (WF), the presence of millets has been fluctuating. One local independent store where I am now that closed due in large part to WF and the recent opening of a Trader Joe's, had consistently a good and varying selection of products made with proso millet (from grain, flour & puffs, to breads, cereals, and crackers), sorghum (grain & flour), and teff (grain & flour). WF never competed fully in that space, and hasn't upped its game beyond grain & flour for proso, sorghum, & teff. One point in its favor is that it also stocks fonio. A local health food store lags even that standard. The main action, if you will, is in Asian-oriented specialty markets, of which I frequent one with Indian foods, one Korean, and one larger one with Chinese and other Asian goods. It's in these locations that one can sample the range of other millets - as grain and flour, sometimes sprouted flour, and other specialties are available. Northern Virginia - DC metro - is a much larger consumer base than where I am now, and some general specialty stores had a lot to explore (thinking in particular of one small organic east coast chain that was founded in this area). Again, stores catering to Asian and African communities had a lot of variety. A thorough market study would be helpful, and probably would show more happening in foods that incorporate one or another millet. Your story, Gary, is interesting on another level. By comparison, I recall David Brenner in Ames, IA, having to go to a larger town to get varieties of millet. Maybe that's changing there too, but it would make sense to sell for example proso products where proso is grown. Much further afield and regarding another crop, when I researched consumption of soybeans in West Africa, it was of interest that in Nigeria, soybeans were a cash crop long before they were adopted into the local foodways (a longish story). In the main proso, sorghum, and teff growing areas on this continent, how often do retailers & consumers think of these as local food as opposed to products for other uses or other places? Anyway, it would be very interesting to hear what others are observing wrt millets on their store shelves. Don DO, EL, MI, US NAMA On Thu, Sep 11, 2025 at 10:07 AM Don Osborn <don@milletsalliance.org> wrote:
Gary recently shared this observation and image, which are passed on here with his permission.
DO, EL, MI, US NAMA
---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Gary Wietgrefe <g...m> Date: Wed, Sep 3, 2025 at 5:02 PM Subject: Millets gaining at retailers To: < ...>
Last week I needed some milk and cereal at our large grocery and noticed they just started carrying Red Mill whole grain proso millet.
A year ago I went into our local small grocery store that focuses on healthy selections and asked for foods containing millet. I was taken to one snack food (an Early July bag of chips). Today, I entered the same store, the same shelves, the same square feet, and without asking for millet selections, easily found whole-grain proso, proso flour, 8-grain hot cereal, Ezekiel cold cereal, puffed millet cereal, and teff.
The big cereal and snack national brands have yet to take notice, but millets are taking an ever-increasing space on American grocery shelves....Gary
-- Author, Gary W. Wietgrefe, https://www.RelatingtoAncients.com/