When Little Sesame first started, it was fifty pounds of chickpeas at a time, shipped from one field in Fort Benton, Montana. That field belonged to Casey Bailey.
Casey's family has worked their land under Montana's big sky for four generations before him. "A fourth-generation product, I grew up on this farm, so it's in my bones," he says.
We started buying from Casey on day one, back when our hummus was still getting blended in a tabletop mixer. He took a chance on a couple of guys with a hummus shop, and we took a chance on betting our supply chain on one grower. We're happy to say it worked out.
Over the years, Casey turned his land back to organic and pioneered ways to grow regeneratively — rotating crops that work with each other instead of against the soil, rather than over-tilling and leaning on chemicals to squeeze out another season. It's slower, and it asks more of a farmer. It's also the reason the chickpeas were worth building a company around in the first place.
"Farming is the most humble career in the world," he told us. "The amount and diverse nature of risk on a farm is absolutely mind-blowing." Weather, markets, machinery, one bad season... a farmer carries all of it, quietly, every year.
What he got from the relationship, in his words: "Our relationship gives me, as a young farmer, total confidence that I have a market for these chickpeas, and we're all in this together." A grower who knows there's a buyer on the other end, and a buyer who knows exactly whose field the chickpeas came from.
Little Sesame has grown a lot since those first fifty-pound orders. More retailers, more hummus, more mouths to feed than one farm could keep up with. But our sourcing story starts with Casey, and every relationship we've built since traces back to this one and the belief that what's good for the soil is good for the plate, and vice versa.
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