The Rye family invested everything on an old farm in sanford to create all-natural food products. True to their name, bread has become their signature creation.
By Billy Liggett | billy@rantnc.com
A lot of love and history go into the sourdough bread sold each Saturday at the Sanford Farmers Market by Alexandria and David Rye, owners of Rye Family Farm. That history comes in the form of a sourdough starter that’s been living and breathing for over 500 years, and the love stems from her desire to not only create a healthy bread made from all natural ingredients, but an entire farm dedicated to providing real food for those who can’t stomach or are looking for alternatives to processed foods.
Five years after putting every penny they owned into purchasing an old horse farm along Franklin Drive in west Sanford to chase their dream, the Ryes are building a loyal customer base. Lines at their bread stand on Saturdays can go 20 deep or more at peak times. Cinnamon swirl, jalapeno cheddar and chocolate sourdough loaves are the popular items, and customers are coming in from outside of Lee County for the scones.
When they first opened their stand a few years back, the Ryes were bringing 10 to 20 loaves a week. That number has climbed into the triple digits — 500 every two weeks, with a new oven and ability to make even more on the way.
Thinking back to their decision to go all in and become farmers and the immense work it took to transform a “trampled up horse farm” into a sustainable business and all natural food source for her family and her community, Alexandria takes a deep breath and smiles.
“Our goal was always to grow real food and serve our community,” she says. “I just never anticipated it to grow the way it has. We’re very, very blessed.”
HOMESTEADERS IN TRAINING
He was born and raised in California. She in Indiana. The Army brought David and Alexandria Rye to North Carolina when David was stationed in Fort Bragg. After 12 years of service, David sought a change from military life to focus on his family and his mental health. That therapy came in the form of a house on eight acres of farmland in Sanford — just 45 minutes after it officially went on the market, the Ryes and their five children were walking the grounds and imagining what it could become.
That was in 2020. While the world around them stood still at the beginning of the pandemic, the Ryes were busy becoming “homesteaders in training.” Alexandria documented their decision and their early struggles in a series of blog posts in 2021. She had just given birth to the couple’s fourth and fifth children, twins Reagan and Linkoln, and was experiencing several health issues considered “life threatening.” Under her doctor’s guidance, Alexandria changed her diet and cut out all gluten, dairy and refined sugars. Their other children — Catarina, David Jr. and Mariah — had intolerances to dairy, sugars, soy and gluten, which made trips to the grocery store a complicated ordeal.
“Our main goal has remained the same — we provide real food and real products. We strive for affordability and quality,” Alexandria wrote in 2021. “What sets us apart is that we donate a good portion of our fresh produce to people in our community and communities around us who don’t have access to fresh quality nutrition, thus making a full circle. For every housemade product purchased, the same product is also donated.
“Our mission is to not just provide for our family, but to help others too.”
What was once a fenced-in horse paddock is now home to several small gardens where the Ryes grow everything from watermelons, lettuce, zucchini and cantaloupes to herbs like lavender and hibiscus. The signature red barn behind their home that once housed horse stables is now where several goats, chickens, turkeys and small cows reside. A grant from the University of Mount Olive afforded them the opportunity to grow and sell mushrooms. And there’s a pollinator garden and bee hives to produce their own honey (an alternative to refined sugar).
What they can’t grow or make, they source locally.
“We’re getting closer, percentage wise, to being able to use our own stuff versus things we buy from the story or from other farms,” Alexandria says. “It’s not been easy — we’re not coming from generations of growers ahead of us. There’s been a lot of trial and error. We’re learning most of this the hard way, but we are getting there.”
The Ryes are big believers in regenerative agriculture — improving soil health, increasing biodiversity and increasing resilience to climate change. Their farm has become its own living, breathing thing, and maintaining it is a full-time job. It’s also become an extraordinary form of therapy for David, a self-proclaimed “dysfunctional veteran” who became a stay-at-home dad after his service and found it difficult to adapt to “civilian life” while Alexandria worked full-time in local government.
“Moving out here, originally, it was more for me than it was for anybody,” he says.
“And once we saw that this was a form of healing, it just encouraged both of us to keep going and figure it all out,” Alexandria adds. “We’ve failed a lot of things — we tried to do maple syrup. We tried to make wine — which wasn’t so bad, except there are just so many rules to it. We tried to make our own apple cider vinegar. And there’s a lot we do make that we can’t sell, because, again, there are rules. Like, we can’t sell goat cheese.”
She pauses.
“Not yet, anyway.”
RYE’S SOURDOUGH
Despite what the name might suggest, Rye Family Farm isn’t a bread farm. In fact, bread wasn’t a big part of the initial plan and was never mentioned in those early blog posts. Bread only appeared in the picture as part of Alexandria’s doctor’s orders to stay away from processed foods and “only eat bread if we made it.” She traveled halfway across the country to Indiana to pick up the half-millennium-old sourdough starter (a living, bubbly mixture of fermented flour and water used to leaven the dough) and made it a personal mission to learn how to bake it. Her first few attempts failed miserably, she says.
“Some of those early loaves might still be around as landscape pavers,” she jokes.
Undeterred, she figured it out until she got a good loaf. She got good enough to start bringing the bread to market — eight loaves that first week, 10 the next. She started making focaccia and bagels. By the end of the year, she had 25 loaves to sell, all baked in a little home oven. As demand grew, Alexandria knew she needed a bigger oven. She formed a partnership with MeMe’s Bakery, a Sanford-based baker who focuses on sweeter baked goods like cookies and pies, in 2023. Using a commercial-scale oven, the Ryes were able to produce 500 loaves a month. Then 1,000 a month.
“I offered a sourdough-making course through the Ladies of Sanford Facebook page, and I got bombarded,” she says. “I think I taught more than 200 people that year — more people were learning about [gut health] and the benefits of sourdough as a bread alternative, and it became a lot. It’s trending, and there’s a market for it, and now our bread has become its own monster.”
If the Sanford Farmers Market is Disney World, Rye Family Farm is its Space Mountain — consistent long lines and a loyal fanbase. Asked what makes her bread so in demand, Alexandria warns that that she’s about to “nerd out” on the science of bread making. She talks about the “good bacteria” found in the starter kit and how the yeast transitions to a natural sugar and creates carbon dioxide. She talks about bubbles and how the older the starter, the harder it is to kill. She shares that she keeps her starter in the refrigerator, but that it “sometimes hangs out with me at work.”
And then, it gets even nerdier.
“The age makes a difference, but if you and I took this same starter, and you made a loaf of bread at your house, and I made a loaf at my house — using the exact same methods and ingredients and doing it at the same time of day, they’d still taste different, because of the pheromones in our body chemistry,” she says, suggesting a more intimate relationship between baker and bread. “And then there’s the flour — we in North Carolina are insanely privileged to have access to freshly milled, high quality flour [from Lindley Mills in Graham, N.C.].”
The success of their bread has allowed the Ryes to continue to pursue the “service” aspect of their farm.
Agriculture is a tight community in Lee County, she says — they rely on local farmers for their meat and for the hay they use to feed their own cattle. And they’re happy that not only have they found their calling, but it’s a calling that allows them to provide for others.
“The more successful and bountiful all of this becomes for our family, the more opportunities it gives us to give back locally,” Alexandria says. “From the beginning, that’s all we wanted.”
***
Learn more about Rye Family Farm online at ryefamilyfarm.com and find their table on Saturdays at the Sanford Farmers Market.
Thanks for a great story. Alex is a dedicated sourdough baker and makes wonderful delicious and REAL bread.