Nov 2022 - Milling and Grain magazine

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76 MARKETS

John Buckley

All

That’s what I thought when the events of September gave way to a less demanding October in terms of travel and reporting.

Not so, as the International Association of Operative Millers (IAOM) stepped into the breach with its 12th Southeast Asia Region Conference and Expo in Penang, Malaysia in the first week of the month.

They followed that with their 32nd IAOM Middle East and Africa Conference and Expo from October 25-28 in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

It is heartening to see the IAOM move south into Africa to host this important event in less prestigious venues. In my view its valuable for all concerned to engage with industry in countries that need assistance in meeting their growing population’s need for nutritious wheat-based products, such as bread which is the obvious staple no matter where you are.

In between the above two events which help to achieve greater inclusiveness, the industry’s attention was drawn to the celebrations on October 20th of one company achievement in particular - the North Dakota Mill and Elevator Company (which is one of the few remaining stateowned flour mills left in the United States) celebrating its 100th anniversary.

This company has been generating a reliable income and profit for the state of Minnesota while supporting its farming communities and providing its nation-wide customer base with quality flours needed in a modern era of consumer demands and cultural needs.

And talking of celebrations, a second occurred just a few days later on October 24th when the Food Fortification Initiative marked its 20th anniversary by identifying 20 countries it

considers ‘Fortification Champions.’

I was moved when I was approached by a street seller in Zanzibar on my first day out walking. He was trying to interest me in a simple wrist bracelet made of seashells when he told me he was 47, had six children and one wife and had to share out limited bread to his family each morning.

All the above events mark the progress our industry is making in ensuring that the world’s population has the food it desires at the prices that meet the needs of all.

We still have a lot to achieve, and our industry is the only one with the means to make a significant and lasting difference in the state of human health. Long may these events continue to reach out to millers everywhere and help us identify the challenges we need to overcome.

On a lighter note

In this issue we also report on our September visit to Ocrim’s Open Days under the overall theme of ‘Grain, Flour and …’ This was a stand-out event that had a flavour and atmosphere of traditional yet modern and artistic Italy. It had something of everything - a conference, a debate, socialising, al fresco dining, a violin concert in a purpose-built conservatory, a new mill and much more - and all located in the town of Cremona on the Po River in Italy.

This edition of Milling and Grain publishes the last chapter in the serialisation of the book Agronauta, written by Sergio Antolini of Ocrim, in this edition. Our thanks go to him for his insightful writings about the production of wheat and flour in Europe down the ages.

Finally, we conclude this issue with a great interview with Gunnar Hallmann of Andritz – this interview is well worth the read!

We at MAG will continue to bring you insights into both companies and individuals who shape and drive our industry forward.

Roger Gilbert

The 32nd IAOM MEA 2022 was concluding in Zanzibar, Tanzania as we went to press. The annual event gathers delegates from 50 countries and around 100 exhibiting companies for a 3-day conference. The program looks at topics such as management, milling technology and trends, as well as trading sessions presented by international speakers.

Our full report will follow in our December 2022 edition on this important industry gathering which attracted traders, buyers, and millers from across the continent to discuss the implications of the war, inflation and the environment are having and likely to have on the milling of grains in Africa and the Middle East.

Here, Roger Gilbert, publisher of MAG, took the opportunity following the closing ceremony to interview Melinda Farris, the CEO of the international Association of Operative Millers, about the event, its outcome and where it goes next.

The full interview can be viewed on our homepage or MAGTV. To see more of our video content visit: www.millingandgrain.com/videos/

Welcome to the November edition of Milling and Grain magazine and this, the very latest addition to the Global Miller column archives. I hope that wherever in the world you happen to be, that you are happy, comfortable and setting down for the temperature fluctuations that the changes of season bring at this time of year

As readers in the southern hemisphere are soaking in the warmth of summer, winter is well and truly starting to unfold here in its northern counterpart. This change will see farmers starting to feed their livestock with processed feed more.

This is because, owing to the reductions in sunlight and excessive rain that comes with the colder months, the grass in the fields will stop growing and will deteriorate in quality. The incoming colder temperatures will also mean that the livestock will usually be kept indoors by November, if not before.

Arable farmers will be continuing to drill wheat, but the process will start to come to an end by mid-month. Liquid fertiliser will be applied to sugar beet fields, and the countryside in November sees a lot of ploughing going on, in preparation for next year’s harvest.

Here in the UK, as the government’s continued dalliances with disorder continue to destabilise the country’s economy, the optimists amongst us are left to try and make the most of a bad situation.

With the passage of time, remaining stoic is increasingly becoming less identifiable as a British trait, that’s for sure.

I am under no illusion though readers, we don’t really have much choice when it comes to party politics here in the UK. Choosing between the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats is very much like choosing between being run over by a bus, a car or a motorcycle - I’ll leave it up to you to decide which is which!

In the world of events, Milling and Grain magazine continue to strive to maintain the global aspect of this closely associated title by trying to be everywhere on the planet at once.

November sees the leading innovation platform of the global animal production industry, Eurotier return again to Hanover, Germany. Offering an overview of innovations and established standards, the German giant provides answers and solutions for current and future challenges.

We will also have a presence at the AFIA Equipment Manufacturers Conference in St Petersburg, Florida and at Ildex in Indonesia.

With locations all over the world covered by our intrepid team of representatives, no other publication has a global presence quite like ours.

If you want to take full advantage of this and have your company’s name and products shared all over the planet, then there is no better solution than speaking to us about one of our many flexible and great value advertising packages.

If you are at all interested, be sure to get in touch with tutit@ perendale.co.uk

See more videos from all aspects of the industry at millingandgrain.com/videos

Celebrating 100 years

The largest single-site production facility, possibly anywhere in the western hemisphere, celebrated its 100th year anniversary on October 20, 2022 while at the same time announcing the recent commissioning of its new ‘H’ and ‘I’ milling units and the conversion of the ‘D’ milling unit, which provides a 22 percent increase in milling capacity.

North Dakota Mill and Elevator, in Grand Forks, North Dakota, USA, welcomed visitors to its facilities for tours and an explanation of the advancement this mill has made over the past 100 years and its plans for the future.

“Since the North Dakota Mill opened its doors at the Grand Forks facility in 1922, it has been fulfilling its mission to promote agriculture, commerce and industry,” comments the Commission in a recent North Dakota Industrial Commission news release.

“What began with an initial capacity of 588,000 pounds of flour per day (266 tonnes) has grown by more than tenfold to over six million pounds per day (2721 tonnes), making it the largest standalone flour mill in the nation and the eighth-largest milling company in the United States.”

The State Mill adds value to 40 million bushels of spring wheat and durum per year (1.09 million tonnes), providing a reliable market and enhancing profitability for our state’s farmers.

Since the year 2000, the Mill has transferred over US$100 million in profits to the state’s general fund or Ag Products Utilisation Fund, supporting services to North Dakota citizens and projects that keep our agricultural industry on the cutting edge, according to the statement.

“We are deeply grateful for the North Dakota Mill team that works hard every day to

provide a superior product and great customer service.”

Mr Vance Taylor, President and CEO of the North Dakota Mill says that, “Along with our 100th anniversary celebration, we are also pleased to announce the completion of the ‘H’ and ‘I’ mills and the ‘D’ mill conversion which increased the milling capacity by 1.1 million pounds of flour per day.”

That’s just under an additional 500 tonnes per day.

“This expansion was done to meet increasing demand from our customers for the quality product we produce here in North Dakota.”

The North Dakota Mill and Elevator Association – the only state-owned mill in the country – was created in 1919 by House Bill 20 and began its operations in Grand Forks on October 30, 1922.

The cost of the State Mill at that time was just over US$3 million. The North Dakota Mill has become the largest single-site flour mill in the United States and has 10 milling units within the mill complex.

“Partnering with the farmers in the surrounding area and across the state, we are committed to drive growth by leveraging our consistent superior quality, great customer service and our dedicated hard-working employees to fulfil our mission,” Mr Taylor says.

Mill tours were led by Kevin Ayotte and Travis Devlin, grain terminal supervisor and director of milling respectively. Mr Ayotte says the mill has grown steadily in the 28 years he has been employed there.

“The facility is three times larger than it was when I started,” he was quoted as saying in the local Grand Forks Herald newspaper.

However, more improvements are underway.

A major project under development is a wheat middlings handling facility which is on schedule to be completed by February 2024. This facility will allow the company to process its by-products more efficiently.

“By improving our efficiency, we will be able to free up capacity to capitalise on emerging trends in the wheat market. We’ll be able to offer our customers

This North Dakota flour mill grows larger by the day

more of what they want and increase profitability,” says the newspaper, quoting Mr Devlin.

US Senator John Hoeven, in a media statement released to coincide with the celebrations at the mill, adds, “Throughout its history, the North Dakota Mill has helped provide a dependable market for our farmers, and we appreciate the hard work of the Mill’s employees in supporting our state as a global ag leader.”

“Through the dedication of our farmers and ranchers, every American benefits every day from the lowest cost, highest quality food supply in the world. Their continued success is central to our quality of life, and that’s why in the Senate, we are working to provide strong farm policy that empowers our producers to manage their risk and grow their operations.”

Tours of the mill were made the following afternoon, followed by a gala dinner held at the Cloud 9 Event Center in downtown Grand Forks. Approximately 400 people attended, including ND Mill employees, its customers, the ND Governor, several local legislators and key vendors/ suppliers.

Mr Taylor praised the organisation’s culture and vision

and talked about the importance of relationships – with customers, suppliers and local government officials.

One of its long-time customers, Steve Tardella, President and CEO at Tardella Foods Inc - a food distribution company specialising in grain commodities - commented on how important his company’s relationship with the mill has been. When COVID-19 hit and their orders dropped dramatically in the first month, they received calls from North Dakota Mill that were inquiries about how they were doing, and if there was anything that the Mill could do to help. Many of Tardella’s restaurant customers, etc closed their doors and the demand for Tardella’s products evaporated.

Mr Tardella backed up his comment on how reliable a partner ND Mill is by adding that he knew of several companies that consistently had supply chain issues and problems with their suppliers. He said that Tardella never once had a supply issue with ND Mill.

Once the formalities were over, the group was entertained by Deuces Wild, a local dueling piano group. The dinner rolls and desserts were prepared by customers of the mill.

Farm tool expanded to optimise nitrogen use & water quality

With pressure mounting on farmers to measure and reduce their impact on water quality, Trinity AgTech has launched an enhanced module within their natural capital navigation tool, Sandy, to specifically support farmers to optimise nitrogen use and reduce nitrate leaching in realtime.

Utilising more than 300 data points, the module has the potential to protect water through a substantial reduction in nitrate leaching and reduce costs by analysing each farm and field's nitrogen uptake efficiency on a daily basis.

“Sandy's dynamic water protection module will help all farmers to manage and reduce their impact on water

quality, while also saving money through a reduction in nitrate wastage,” explains Dr Milad Toolabi, director of artificial intelligence-machine learning (AI-ML) advanced analytics at Trinity AgTech.

“Sandy's forecasting and scenario analysis capabilities can alert farmers to the optimum time and quantity of nitrogen to apply. This allows a precision approach to applications, contributing towards a cost saving and a reduction in water pollution risk.”

Having already been adopted by farms across Europe, UK farm trials have indicated improvements not only in terms of financial savings and efficiency but also for farm sustainability.

“Reducing nitrogen usage also reduces carbon dioxide equivalent emissions from fertiliser applications, which significantly improves a farm's sustainability or carbon score,” says Dr Toolabi.

He adds that Sandy connects information already gathered from the farm, such as soil data, regionality, crop information, application and management practices, alongside external metrics including weather data, to enable farmers to make realtime, evidence-based decisions.

“Integrating with farm management software such as Gatekeeper and Muddyboots, farmers can use Sandy to map out the financial and environmental impact of immediate and future farm decisions,” he says.

“Whether farmers are in the business of growing grass or arable crops, the tool can provide them with the right insights to support environmental and financial gains. Ultimately, it will help farmers profit from their decision making, which is key for a sustainable, resilient farm business.

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“Despite the model being based on complex science, artificial intelligence and machine learning engineering, it's very easy to use. It's a useful tool for farmers in NVZs, and for those who are looking to improve the efficiency of farm inputs and save money, while also capitalising on the environmental gains of improved water quality,” he concludes. FILIP GmbH

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Leiber constructs new sustainable biomass power plant

In the future, Leiber will use waste wood to generate a large proportion of the heat energy and about one third of the electricity required for its production operations in Engter, Lower Saxony, Germany. To this end, the brewers' yeast specialist is investing around 14 million euros in a new biomass power plant.

Regarding the start of construction in October 2022, Bernd SchmidtAnkum, Managing Director of Leiber GmbH, says,“With the biomass power plant in Engter, we want to use waste wood to replace around 70 percent of the gas previously required for our production. Here, we are pursuing the goal of manufacturing our products not only in a sustainable way, but also in a climate-neutral way in the future.”

Leiber needs heat for the production process: for drying the brewers' yeast in spray towers and for extracting high-quality, health-promoting ingredients. At Engter, this thermal energy has been generated from gas, until now. To replace this fossil fuel with a renewable raw material, Leiber is building a biomass power plant that will be fuelled by waste wood.

“By the end of 2023, the new biomass power plant should be supplying

around half of the gas and electrical energy. This will allow us to save up to 10,000 tonnes of CO2 per year,” says Oliver Beckmann, Director Technology & Production. “This will bring us closer to our goal of using energy even more efficiently and manufacturing Leiber's products as sustainably and climate-neutrally as possible.”

The boiler plant of the new biomass power plant will be constructed on a footprint of 760 square metres. The wood storage facility covers an area of 570 square metres and can store up to 2500 cubic metres of waste wood.

A maximum of three tonnes of wood will be burnt per hour, equating to around 15,000 tonnes per year. The waste wood used to fuel the plant is waste from wood processing facilities or pruned material from landscape conservation.

Leiber will have the effects of this energy generation checked annually and recorded in a transparent manner as part of the company's sustainability strategy. Leiber is certified on a regular basis according to the ZNU Quality Seal for Sustainable Management, which is awarded by the Center for Sustainable Leadership at the University of Witten Herdecke.

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Turkish company targets 400% growth with US$59.5 million investment

Doruk Un (Doruk Wheat), one of Turkey's biggest wheat flour producers and exporters, is aiming to grow by more than 200 percent in wheat and bakery products and 400 percent in its other investment and business branches.

The company aims to achieve this with its investment of US$59.5 million (Turkish Liras 1.1 billion) that it plans to realise mainly in retail sales and agriculture and seed growing, noodle and pasta, feed and feed raw materials in its five-year projection.

Additionally, Doruk Un is planning to make RES and GES investments for needing its own energy and is getting ready to dominate the retail wheat market with Panpan brand, in addition to its export to 41 countries.

The brand, with its advance in the retail market, will develop special products for needs and uses in a wide range from domestic use to bakeries and restaurants, from hotels to baklava and dough shops.

Doruk Un, one of the three biggest brands of Turkey in wheat and wheat-based products, holds a strong place in the Turkish economy with its wheat breaking capacity of 438,000 tonnes annually, annual 350,000 tonnes wheat production, 60,000 tonnes wheat capacity, its 20,000m2 advance technology facility and its sales & distribution network getting wider every year.

Gürsel Erbap, who is CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Doruk Un, indicated that they started from the point where energy is a big expense item after the situation in the world in terms of energy prices, and they plan to meet their own consumption with a solar energy facility that they will establish and that they will minimise their costs.

2022 has been a productive year

Mr Erbap stated that 19 million tonnes of wheat harvest was realized approximately in 2022, adding that, “Turkey is a country sufficient for itself in wheat production. If it is moved with correct agriculture policies in Turkey and if TMO continues its agriculture supports as it did in this year especially, there will be a significant increase in wheat production.

“Current production can be increased in 60 percent rate by combining agriculture lands and bringing land that are not planted into agriculture through making land consolidation and by making investments for productivity and by integrating it to technology. It means that it is possible to create a value-added economy by reaching to export capacity without making import.”

While it is estimated that there will be 19.8 million tonnes of wheat production in Turkey in 2022, it is expected that this figure will exceed 22 million tonnes in 2025.

Bringing Turkey forward

Erbap, who attracted attention to the importance of the Marmara Region and Thrace lands for wheat harvest for Turkey, highlighted that approximately 3.12 million tonnes of wheat harvest in Turkey (which was 19.8 million tonnes in 2022 wheat harvest) was obtained from the Marmara Region.

Marmara Region, and especially Tekirdağ province as one of the important locations for wheat in terms of productivity and with its planting area size, ensure a logistic advantage for use, as a result of their proximity to ports, and also stated Marmara Region as the second region after Central Anatolia Region to meet the wheat harvest of Turkey.

The 'Grain Corridor'

Turkey is one of the 10 biggest wheat exporters in the world, with its wheat export of approximately seven million tonnes, according to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) data. “Its proximity to the Black Sea basin and being a critical interim point in wheat production, especially after the RussiaUkraine war, bring Turkey forward in terms of export, adds Mr Erbap.

“We, as Doruk Un, realise 13 percent of total wheat export of realised from Turkey, except Iraq and Syria. Making only border export carries a serious risk for Turkey in further period, therefore we moved to different markets.“They also state that Turkish wheat will increase its existence in export markets with the 'Grain Corridor Agreement.”

Since the agreement will ensure secure dispatch of grain and foods from Ukraine, with hosting provided by Turkey, it will ensure balancing food prices on a global scale, which will be followed with attention by the whole world.

Turkish milling machine service provider and Italian packaging company sign agreement

Acompany that exports spare parts for milling machines and provides after-sales services to more than 80 countries all over the world, signs a collaboration agreement with Italy's leading packaging company, Duetti Packaging.

Alapala Holding's group company Depart; entered a new business area after mill machinery spare parts and after-sales services. After signing the cooperation agreement, the company officials of Depart and Duetti, stated that their targets are high and announced that they will start the operation straight away Already working with Duetti in Turkey, Zambia, Uzbekistan and Angola; Depart will continue its sales operation in other countries too.

“As Depart; we have signed a collaboration agreement with Duetti Packaging, the leading Italian company that has been producing packaging systems for more than 40 years,” comments Depart's General Manager Cengiz Tiryakioğlu in a statement regarding the agreement.

"Duetti designs and manufactures endof-line packaging systems offering the best possibile solutions for all industries. So, their product range is quite wide. Some of its products are palletisers, case formers, conventional or robotic box packers, case closers, palletisers, pallet wrapping systems, industrial conveyors, case check-weighers and safety containment systems.

"I believe that we will announce our name Depart in the packaging industry, just like the great breakthroughs we make in the milling machines spare parts sector all around the world in a short time.

"I wish the sales and marketing cooperation that we have started under the roof of Depart will be beneficial to all of us,” he also adds.

Ukraine and Canada strengthening cooperation

The Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Mykola Solskyi held a meeting with the Minister of International Development of Canada and the Minister responsible for the Pacific Economic Development Agency of Canada Harjit Sajan.

During the negotiations, the parties discussed the state, problems, the most relevant areas of cooperation and the possibilities of support from Canada to the agricultural sector of Ukraine.

The subject of the discussions were the issues of grain storage and export, supply of alternative energy sources and providing the country with fertilisers.

“First of all, I want to thank the government of Canada for supporting Ukraine, in particular, in solving the problem of shortage of grain storages. It was Canada that was one of the first to provide financial assistance for the purchase of means for temporary storage of the crop,” says the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine.

He emphasises that the issue of grain storage became relevant after the aggressor invaded Ukraine and blocked the export of Ukrainian products. Despite the partial unblocking of sales and transportation, the perspective of the grain corridor remains uncertain, so the issue of warehouses does not lose its relevance, as it ensures proper storage of the harvest – a vital product.

Mykola Solskyi also talked about the problems that farmers had to face. Unfavorable weather conditions and the

consequences of the military invasion, which led to a lack of profit for this year's produced products, jeopardised the financial ability of farmers to sow fields with winter wheat or barley. According to the minister, the supply of any other grain crop that can be sown in the spring will be a necessary support for farmers.

The Minister of Agricultural Policy and Food of Ukraine emphasised the need to supply additional sources of energy for farmers and agricultural producers.

“Systematic and targeted shelling of infrastructure facilities is aimed at depriving Ukraine of energy resources, does not allow to ensure continuity of processes and preserve the existing capacities of the agricultural sector.

“Without adequate electricity supply, farmers, agricultural producers and, in fact, the entire chain of the agricultural complex will suffer. The supply of diesel generators will be a real way out of the energy collapse caused by the enemy,' Mykola Solsky emphasised during the meeting.

In addition, the parties discussed the possibility of providing Ukraine with various types of fertilisers. In particular, regarding the supply of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

During the meeting, the parties also outlined further concrete steps that will allow Ukraine to receive the necessary assistance and agreed to work together on a number of discussed topics. Both leaders are determined to further close cooperation in solving bilateral agro-political issues.

Messrs Le Tall install new machines at Crown Mills

Milling journals of the past at The Mills Archive

by Mildred Cookson, Mills Archive Trust, UK

Lincoln cathedral, high on a hill above the river Witham dominates the city and at the time of this article in Milling (18 June 1938) it had its modern residential districts, mills and factories. One business that combined aspects of the city’s life was that of Messrs. Henry Le Tall Ltd, owner of the Crown Mills. They had a fine 10-sack set up with an up to the minute roller mill plant, a large proportion of which was housed in the tower of what was claimed to be the tallest windmill in the country.

Mr Henry Le Tall was born near Sheffield in 1824 where he ran a milling business for many years. However, the steam mill that he had erected in Chapel Street burnt down in 1871 and he decided at that point to move to fresh fields. On his move to Lincoln, he acquired a large six sailed windmill in Princess Street and at once he proceeded to improve this by installing a steam engine.

In 1882 he put in the first roller mills to supplement the French Burr millstones and in

1886 instructed Messrs. Thornton of Retford to install a complete roller system. This would include rotary scalpers, dressing machines etc., and bring the capacity of the mill up to eight sacks per hour.

Many improvements

At the same time, extensive warehouses and a silo of 2000 quarters capacity were added to supplement the already 5000 quarters of grain stored. The business was formed into a limited company in 1893 and in 1895 the capacity of the plant was increased to 10 sacks per hour.

In 1920 the mill was remodeled by Messrs ER & F Turner of Ipswich, and among their improvements was a line of diagonal four roller mills and three free swinging plansifters.

by Mildred Cookson, The Mills Archive, UK

Modernisation at Lincoln

The directorate of the company at this time consisted of Mr. Sydney Le Tall who had joined the firm in 1894 and after serving in all the milling departments for 12 years was appointed Secretary in 1906.

Mr Harry Birks Le Tall who joined the firm in 1898 took on the job of looking after the practical work in the mill and Mr Percy H Le Tall was the firm’s engineering expert and millwright. Early in 1937 it was decided to bring the screen room up to date and at the same time, improve the purification section of the mill. Turners were called in again as consultants, work commenced in the September and was finished in the following February.

Room for improvement

The firm’s supply of foreign wheat was brought from Hull in 100-ton lighters along the River Trent and the Fossdyke Canal via the Torksey Lock. This was then delivered at the mill by motor wagons.

On arrival, the wheat was shot into an intake hopper that delivered it to an elevator of 500 bushels per hour capacity; the wheat travelled over a moving reel and a receiving separator to the dirty wheat bins.

In the screen room the wheat received a thorough washing, cleaning, and conditioning, but it was in this department that Mr Turner found room for improvement. Up to then the mill had been using the old-fashioned cylinders for the separation of barley, oats and cockle, and they were not really satisfactory to

get the best results. Turners suggested installing their well-known high-capacity cylinders. A No 5 model incorporating re- treatment cylinders in the frame, and a capacity of 80.9 bushels of wheat an hour, was chosen for the job.

The wheat, once through the screen room, was sent to the grinding bins on the upper floors of the windmill, directly above the break rolls, which were housed on the first floor.

The wheat fell by gravity from grinding to first break. There were four breaks, the second, third and fourth being graded into coarse and fine. The break scalping was done on the freeswinging quadruple plansifter on the fourth floor of the windmill.

The mill in 1992 (Frank Gregory Collection, Mills Archive)

The tallest windmill in the country

Advantageous for mills

The grading of semolina and middlings were carried out on plansifters on the top floor of the mill. The reduction rolls were Turner’s diagonal four roller mills, installed in 1920 and which in 1938 still looked as good as new. The purifier floor had four of the double fanless purifiers in line. Each side of the double purifiers had double worms as a standard fitment. This had proved advantageous for mills with low floors, and saved worms and band conveyors on the roller floor.

Holding his own

Although Mr Le Tall’s mill was small compared to some mills, he could hold his own and his trade extended throughout Lincolnshire and into the Midlands as far as Nottingham. The new adjustments to their plant had made it possible for them to face the future boldly and with ever-increasing business.

The windmill with nine floors was built by a Mr Seely and it still stands today. It was converted into apartments in 1994, but still presents an imposing sight. It stands 77 feet and 6 inches to the curb and originally had five sails.

In 1863 a hurricane caused severe damage to the mill and the sails were taken down. The mill was repaired but with six sails. Unfortunately to date no images have come to light showing the mill with sails. By 1871 it was powered by steam and it remains Grade II listed to this da.

The Mills Archive has a press cutting showing the mill without sails and the photographer is asking the public for any image showing the mill with sails. We also have other images of the mill, showing it before and during conversion to apartments.

www.millsarchive.org

1932 sketch by Karl Wood (Mills Archive)

by Dr Mahmoud Riyad, Secretary-General, Egyptian Milling Association, Egypt

Egypt’s private-sector wheat importers suffer an urgent crisis

The price of wheat and flour used to make unsubsidised bread has spiked in Egypt as importers struggle to pay for wheat stuck at ports amid a US ‘dollar shortage’, traders and the country’s chamber of cereals told Reuters in the first week of October.

Around 700,000 tonnes of wheat haven’t been released from customs, causing around 80 percent of mills producing commercially sold bread, pasta and other goods to “cease activity completely,” according to a September 26 letter from the Federation of Egyptian Industries’ Chamber of Cereals to the minister of supply.

While global wheat prices have fallen to their levels before the Russia-Ukraine war, prices in Egypt have risen due to depleting stocks, said Hussein Boudy, the Chamber’s deputy head.

Egypt’s importers can no longer replenish their wheat stocks amid a US dollar shortage caused by a rising import bill and decreasing tourism revenues from two of its largest markets — Ukraine and Russia.

Wheat prices rose by around 10 percent to 9000 Egyptian pounds (US$458.02) per tonne in the last two weeks, Mr Boudy said, while some traders reported steeper rises of up to 15 percent. Flour also rose by 18 percent to 11,500 Egyptian pounds (US$585.24) per tonne.

“Bigger mills … used to store for a month and a half or two, but today some mills have stocks for seven to five days,” said Walid Diab, managing director of the Egyptian Millers Company. “We are in the red zone.”

The government “will work on the issue” of declining private sector wheat stocks, Egypt’s Supply Minister told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference.

Supply crunch

As foreign currency reserves dwindled, authorities introduced rules in March that restricted access to dollars for imports.

Although wheat and other strategic goods were exempted, private-sector traders say wheat import payments have nearly stopped since September and no new contracts have been signed.

Imports of corn, poultry, and soybeans have also been affected, traders say.

“Suppliers understand that there’s an issue with Egypt but now they don’t want to do new business until the old stocks are released,” said one local trader.

Since early September, only 2000-3000 tonnes of wheat got through customs, the Chamber’s letter said. Monthly private sector needs are estimated at around 450,000 tonnes, and according to the Chamber, mills need the immediate release of around 300,000 tonnes.

The supply crunch has caused a spike in the price of bread in some bakeries, said Hesham Soliman, a Cairo-based private sector trader.

There were no signs of shortages at bakeries, said Attia Hammad of the Cairo Chamber of Commerce, though he said some bakeries could hike prices or decrease the weight of loaves because of rising costs.

Egypt, with a population of 104 million, is typically the world’s biggest wheat importer. Private sector imports recently overtook those by the state buyer, which purchases wheat for a large, subsidised bread program.

The war in Ukraine has exacerbated the shortage of foreign currency. Capital inflows have dried up, particularly to the local debt market. Net foreign reserves decreased to around US$33 billion at the end of August, dropping from around US$41 billion in January 2022.

According to an article that appears in print in the October 6, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly, which declared that grain mills are also affected. The Cereals Chamber of the Federation of Egyptian Industries wrote a memo to the Ministry of Industry complaining that mills were coming to a standstill because of a lack of wheat to grind.

Speaking on television Karim Abu Ghali, a member of the chamber, said 700,000 tonnes of wheat imported by the private sector are sitting at ports because they cannot access the hard currency to release it.

He said if the CBE made US$50-US$60 million available enough wheat would be released to cover the needs of the market for 10-15 days. At a time when the price of wheat has fallen to pre-Ukraine War levels the scarcity of hard currency has caused its local price to jump to LE11,500 per tonne whereas a more realistic level would be around LE9500.

Abu Ghali estimated that at the moment 60-70 percent of mills cannot find the wheat to grind, and for three to four weeks no new wheat has entered the market. He added that suppliers are reluctant to conclude new contracts until goods already held in ports are released.

In repose to the scarcity of flour, private bakeries are selling smaller loaves rather than raising the unit price. Poultry producers also complain that feed is selling for triple its real value.

Matta Bishai, head of the Internal Trade Committee in the Importers’ Division of the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce said, “Traders are hiking prices, but who can blame them if the bulk of their capital is frozen in the form of goods stuck in ports?

“They need to increase the price of the stocks they have in order to cover their expenses.”

First half of autumn sees 10.4 million tonnes shipped from Ukraine

In one and a half months of autumn, Ukraine shipped 10.4 million tonnes of grain, legumes, oil crops and their processing products. This is one million tonnes more than for the entire summer of 2022. In particular, in 16 days of October, 3.6 million tonnes of grain left Ukraine. In just 7.5 months, 23 million tonnes of agricultural products crossed the Ukrainian border.

This month, for the first time since the beginning of the war, wheat took the lead in terms of supplies, while corn, which had been the leading export in recent months, took second place. Thus, the volume of shipped wheat as of October 16 is 1149 million tonnes, which is 100,000 tonnes more than in mid-September. 1089 million tonnes of corn were also shipped, which is 300,000 tonnes less than in the previous half of the month.

In total, since the beginning of the war, 4.6 million tonnes of wheat and corn have been shipped from Ukraine, almost twice as much.

Rapeseed supplies decreased by 237,000 tonnes compared to the first half of September. As of mid-October, 341,000 tonnes of this crop were exported. The same downward trend is observed in sunflower oil: 365 thousand tonnes in mid-September against 265 thousand tonnes in midOctober.

The amount of meal deliveries remains almost unchanged – 257 thousand tonnes, which is 14 thousand tonnes less than in mid-September. Barley and sunflower seeds also have similar volumes in terms of shipments. 165,000 tonnes of barley and 152,000 tonnes of sunflower went, which is 44,000 tonnes more than in the first half of September.

118,000 tonnes of soybeans were shipped, which is 7,000 tonnes less than in the first half of September. Minor changes in the supply of soybean oil: as of mid-October, 13,400 tonnes were shipped, which is 3000 tonnes less than in the middle of September.

The general picture of the quantities of agricultural products that actually crossed the border of Ukraine in percentage for the first half of October is as follows: 30.70% is planted with corn, 32.37% with wheat, 9.61% with rapeseed, 7.47% with sunflower oil, 7. 23% – meal, 4.28% – sunflower seeds, barley – 4.64%, soybeans –3.33%, soybean oil – 0.38%.

The export of agricultural products in terms of their transportation in the first two weeks of October is as follows: 2.8 million tonnes were sent through ports (sea and river), 436 thousand tonnes by rail, 318 thousand tonnes by car, and 22.3 thousand tonnes by ferry.

Information on the volume of shipments by individual types of goods and modes of transport in accordance with EAIS 'Delivery Control'.

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Stansted Windmill, Essex

by Nathanael Hodge, Rex Wailes Collection, Mills Archive, UK

Stansted windmill stands in the village of Stansted Mountfitchet in Essex, England, not far from London

Stansted airport. It was first erected in 1787 by Joseph Linsell and his wife, along with the adjacent house, granary, bakehouse and malthouse (later destroyed in 1877). At the time the mill was mortgaged for UK£500 to Mrs Cressell of Little Sampford, Essex.

The mill was sold by auction in 1807 to Henry Chaplin, who mortgaged it to Robert Sworder. As Chaplin’s heir was unable to pay the interest on the mortgage the mill passed to Robert’s son Thomas Sworder in 1854.

Although the Sworder family owned the mill, the millers were Edward and Charles Hicks and their descendants. The unreliable nature of the wind and competition from newer forms of milling technology meant that it was hard to make a profit from running a windmill.

There were frequent disputes between landlord and tenant over the funding of repairs and improvements, with Hicks requesting the addition of steam power, which was never carried out. In 1867 the mill was sold to William White and in 1887 to James Blyth, later Baron Blyth of Stansted Mountfitchet. In the same year it was dressed from top to bottom with bunting for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.

The Hicks family continued to mill until 1910 when the mill finally ceased work after 123 years. In the 1930s the second Lord Blyth had the mill repaired and made over by deed of gift to the Stansted Parish Council, with Rex Wailes as a co-trustee.

The mill was a Scout hut from the 1940s to 1963 and became a Scheduled Ancient Monument in 1952. In 1964 it was opened to the public, and restoration work was carried out in 1966 and again in 1984-5 and in 2010. It remains open to visitors today.

With a recent article in the New York Times stating that “many employers say college graduates often do not have the skills required for a job,” the impetus to bridge this apparent skills gap is with the candidate themselves now more so than ever.

With the more widespread introduction of automation, the milling industry job market is now much more competitive than in previous years too, so with this information in mind, it is very timely that the Online Milling School and Credo are conducting a 12-week training course.

Beginning on October 26 and concluding on December 14, the course involves a weekly two-hour live webinar, which consists of a comprehensive presentation with Q&A sessions, and an Online Milling School certificate of attendance will be received at the end.

Accessible to Europe, Asia, US & Latin America, the program gives the opportunity for participants to register individually or as a group (to watch and participate in the webinars together). The schedule has been especially suited to accommodate busy work timetables and can be completed at the workplace.

The course will inform participants on the latest technologies and machinery for feed plants, to help those who want to fully understand the feed milling process and what

it takes to produce sustainable feeds - giving those attending the opportunity to review key milling operations, gain ideas and acquire knowledge that will help further improve the feed production process.

Broaden your milling knowledge

The course webinars will benefit a wide range of people, such as feed mill plant owners, managers and operators, quality assurance and maintenance staff, nutritionists and feed formulators, feed additive and animal health suppliers, in addition to industry advisors and technical consultants.

The speakers will consist of industry experts, and the sessions allow for audience participation at the end with a Q&A with the program facilitators. The topics range from raw material receiving and storage (effective warehouse inventory), grinding & Batching operations, mixing operations, and the principles of conditioning.

The following sessions will refer to the pelleting process, cooling, crumbling, and packing, considerations of associated process equipment, feed mill management, quality assurance, and quality control.

The training course is a great learning platform or a refresher for those involved in feed production of livestock and aquaculture feeds at their place of work.

The event is organised and delivered by Milling and Grain, and Progressus Agrischools, and is sponsored by Agentis Innovations and The International Milling and Grain Directory.

To find out more, visit the online Milling School website by going to: https://mymag.info/e/1666

Nutrition Congress by College of Animal Welfare

A one day virtual training event with a focus on animal nutrition, diets, strategies and nutritional requirements will take place on 1 December, 2022. The full price of the course is £175, and aims to increase your knowledge and confidence on nutritional topics. The day will feature a range of expert speakers ,delivering lectures on senior feline nutrition, cardiac diets, pet obesity, communicating with owners, raw feeding, and nutrition for exotic pets.

Aimed at veterinary nurses, the course will develop your animal nutrition knowledge, subsequently improving the nutritional advice given to pet owners. It provides attendees with the ability to specialise and progress within their role, as well as a way to keep up-to-date with everything happening in the industry.The course provides a wide range of lectures and speakers, who will share their experiences and knowledge. There will also be Q & A sessions with the speakers, who will give you practical takeaways to implement in your practice. The virtual exhibitors will equip you with information, product knowledge, and offers. The event also gives you the opportunity to gain online access to recordings of all the lectures, including previous lecture events.

The first Lecture will be on nutrition for super senior felines, delivered by Alexandra Taylor, who runs the company ‘The Cat Nurse’. This talk looks at the physical and mental changes in older cats, and how it affects their appetite, digestion, body

condition and changing nutritional requirements compared to younger felines.

The next speaker is Dr Marge Chandler from Vets Now, talking about ‘The overweight Pet and His Owner’, discussing the consequences of canine and feline obesity, giving a better understanding into the aetiology and difficulties in weight loss and weight management.

The day will also feature a talk on ‘The Raw Truth’ by Katie McCaul, from The Pet Diet and Raw Feeding Veterinary society. This lecture will address nutritional adequacy and safety concerns in regards to raw food, and provide resources and answers to common myths. It will ultimately impart knowledge on minimising the risks of raw feeding, based on unbiased and evidence based information.

Next will be an exhibition on ‘Advances in Cardiac Nutrition’ by Nicola Lakeman, from Plymouth Veterinary Group. This talk will touch upon how diets and nutrients affect cardiac health and issues, by discussing new findings and what it means for veterinary practices.

Lastly, Matthew Rendle, from The Association of Zoo and Exotic Veterinary Nurses (AZEVN), will give a talk on ‘ExoticsNutritional advice for common exotics seen within practice’. This will look at commonly kept species, how to prevent nutritional problems as well as what to do when those problems occur.

Your industry training platform

and aqua feed products.

The Pet Food and Aquafeed Workshop took place recently, running from September 20 to September 23 at Bühler headquarters in Uzwil, Switzerland. This extensive 4-day training event gave participants the opportunity to continue their education in extrusion production, whilst observing practical demonstrations with Bühler’s cutting edge technology.

The workshop provided those attending with an introduction to the basics of extrusion technology, focusing on preconditioning, energy, moisture and mass flow balance. The training is in the style of a hands-on workshop, and will discuss topics such as Single v/s twin screw extrusion technology, screw configuration, die and knife technology, SME control, product density control and its significance in vacuum coating. Additional topics covered in the workshop are micro-feed for aqua as well as fresh meat addition and filled pillow treats for pet food.

There were practical demonstrations to help attendees apply everything they learnt in Bühlers modern pilot plant. The demonstration featured Bühler's Twin-screw extruder. The equipment is a multifunctional PolyTwin, EcoTwin and CompacTwin twin-screw extruders that offers flexible, reliable 24/7 processing for breakfast cereals, food ingredients, pet food

The sessions were administered in English, and took place at their Extrusion Application Centre, which is a multi-purpose lab where tests are conducted on food and animal feed, for example, checking new recipes, product shapes or textures. The food trials that take place in this lab include cereals, extruded breadcrumbs, reconstituted rice, flavouring, modified starch and modified flour, soybeans, sunflower seeds, peas and new proteins. They use their latest technology to run regular tests on pet food, animal feed and aqua food for freshwater and marine species.

Understanding how to apply the opportunity of extrusion technology for various products is the goal of this training event. The subjects targeted to demonstrate this concept are cereals, pulses, bypass proteins, fish feeds, pet food treats, texturization of proteins, and any other specific topics of interest from participants.

The workshop was designed for individuals who are actively involved in the technological aspects and feasibility of extrusion production for aqua/pet food, such as operation supervisors, engineering or R&D personnel. The sessions were run by experienced extrusion experts and included hands-on training for theoretical aspects. Once attendees completed the 4-day course, they were awarded a certificate of participation.

FOCUS Product November 2022

In every edition of Milling and Grain magazine, we dedicate this page to taking a look at the products that will save you both time and money in the food and feed milling process.

Should you have a new product or service that you would like to feature on this page in a future edition of our magazine, be sure to contact us at editorial@ perendale.co.uk

The Pegasus mixer by Dinnissen

Increasingly efficient and faster production has led to a need for more and more multiprocessing machines in the food industry. That is why an increasing number of producers see the Pegasus mixer as a good addition to their production line.

The core of this double-axis Pegasus paddle mixer comprises two opposingly-rotating shafts, making it ideally suited for ultra-fast mixing of powders, pellets grain and granular materials. The shape of the paddles and the mixing chamber ensure optimum mixing with the least possible product damage.

Fragile products can also be mixed, heated and cooled with the Pegasus mixer. And the Pegasus mixer has the added advantage of large wing-doors to allow easy access for inspection, maintenance and cleaning.

If desired, you can also opt for mobile bunkers and two large floor hatches for complete emptying of the mixing chamber.

www.dinnissen.eu

BOA compactor by Anderson Feed Technology

The BOA compactor is a unique alternative for double pelleting or expanding. It has a double-walled mixing chamber in which steam and liquids are introduced and the mixture is compacted using a hydraulically operated compacting chamber.

Generously sized paddles, adjustable in both height and pitch, guarantee a homogeneous mixture and a hygienic process. The mixture is introduced into the compacting chamber where a rotating three-roller head presses the material through two conical friction rings.

Three hydraulic cylinders accurately assess the adjustable distance (0.125 – 2.0) between the friction rings which, along with the motor power of the main motor, determine the compaction level. The unique combination of mixing chamber and compacting chamber ensures an optimum absorption of steam and liquids, a more homogeneous distribution of the raw materials, a higher pelleting capacity and excellent pellet quality.

Debugger DB09 by Frigortec

The Debugger DB09 ensures guaranteed killing of insects at all stages of development and is specially designed for heat treatment in smaller rooms. The Debugger method (heat treatment) from FrigorTec increases the air temperatures to minimum 45°C without exceeding the upper limit of 60°C.

In this temperature range insects, larvae and eggs die by protein coagulation without the additional use of chemical substances. Ideal for targeted applications in rooms and smaller areas and frequently used for mattress and upholstery debugging in hotels, trains, etc.

Its main benefit is easy handling and quick assembly and disassembly along with low-noise operation. For many years, Frigortec have been producing Debugger devices for effective heat treatment. This has given them extensive expertise in all aspects of pest control.

FrigorTec also provides worldwide solutions for grain cooling, room air conditioning, hay drying, insect heat treatment, heat pumps and special cooling solutions.

www.andersonfeedtech.com

RG Series Rotary Paddle Level Indicators by 4B

The RG Series Level Sensors have been designed to indicate the presence or absence of bulk materials such as grains, pellets, chemicals, wood chips and other powders. The detection of material is achieved by a rotating paddle.

The RG Series has a variety of compatible paddles which offer the ability to detect a wide range of products. The paddles are interchangeable, making the RG Sensors adaptable to different densities of measured materials.

An easy to install instrument, the RG Series sensors do not require any calibration, maintenance or specific tool for their installation. The sensors are customisable, not only with paddles, but also with extensions and voltages.

Working with ambient temperatures from -20° to +70°C, he sensors are extremely versatile, and can be installed on tanks, hoppers, on walls or roofs of silos, in a vertical, horizontal or oblique position.

www.frigortec.com

Horizontal dryers by Extru-tech

Extru-Tech horizontal dryers are the leading industry tool for the production of a diverse range of food and feed products, including pet and aquatic foods and foods for human consumption.

The company has taken dryer technology to the next level with the new Advanced Feature Dryer, which features improved performance and new sanitary dryer features. Its tool-free door assemblies and increased dryer bed floor clearance for easier access and inspection allowing overall cleanout in 15 minutes.

The dryer includes filtered make up air and burner air to reduce cross-contamination or re-contamination and redesigned chute with span and speed controls for ‘in-process’ adjustments, reduced horizontal ledges allow for ease of cleaning.

Stainless steel solid construction hinged interior doors permit easy access to product conveyors. Fines removal augers and air supply plenum discharge gates provide simple, quick clean-out at one common collection point.

http://extru-techinc.com

Grain Improvers

Higher milling efficiency & flour quality

Crisis situations often force manufacturers to seek hidden reserves for self-preservation, and to look for new ways of survival and development.

2020 became a stark example of the global crisis, which affected even the basic industries - baking and grain processing.

Now all those who know that the crisis is the time for new opportunities, are the companies that will succeed.

In relation to a global decrease in purchasing power, maximising production efficiency with minimal costs and an emphasis on environmental friendliness became more in everyone’s best interests than ever before.

The coronavirus pandemic has also focused global attention on health and good nutrition, not just for each person, but across entire countries. Now it has become more important to evaluate food products in terms of nutritional and biological value. And production is moving to a new level, in which the main task is to get a product under the ‘Clean label.’

Looking for new opportunities

The grain crisis of 2022 has further forced millers to look for new opportunities that will help them get more and better from their grain reserves than in previous years, when standard flour milling methods were practiced.

With this in mind, the company would like to present a line of innovative products that fully comply with all modern global trends. Examples of this include the range from Grain Improvers – a patented 100 percent natural enzymatic composition, with the sole purpose of facilitating grain grinding and improving flour quality.

Cellulose of grain shells is the substrate for Enzymes’ action. Grain improvers are applied in dry form by a simple in-line dispenser on wet grain at the stage of Tempering. The product also softens and disintegrates grain shells, making them much more flexible than with standard way of grain preparation for grinding with only water.

Grain Improvers is an environmentally friendly solution that allows you to process plant cereals (wheat, rice, corn and oats) as efficiently as possible at lower costs, while increasing the nutritional and biological value of finished products.

A unique composition of enzymes

Since 2011, the company’s team has begun the R&D for a unique composition of enzymes - Grain Improvers and since then excellent results were achieved, which we would be glad to share with you.

In 2015, world priority was received for Grain Improvers and at the moment there are patents in Europe, Australia, Russia and patenting in USA, India and other countries is ongoing.

The Grain Improvers range is designed to meet requirements of a specific mill. The main advantage is that better results can be achieved without additional CAPEX and by increasing the yield of flour which is also important for overcoming the extended economic crisis.

The use of Grain Improvers gives millers high-quality-value flours’ yield increase, prolongs milling equipment life, extends service intervals and reduces energy costs thus allowing a mill to operate economically more efficient and complying with the modern industry and market trends and requirements.

Wheat, Flour and …

Where honour is a burden to be carried for life

(A slightly abridged version)

by Sergio Antolini when opening Ocrim Open Days ‘Wheat, flour and … 2022,’ Cremona, Italy

Along with my brother Alberto, I have the honour of opening this wonderful appointment, an event awaited by all of use for more than two years.

I leave it to the talented Ocrim engineers who are going to inform you about technical development, milling techniques and technologies. They are going to tell you something exciting, something that makes Ocrim special, something that is not written on contracts or technical records, but which nevertheless represents enormous value of our large family.

I would like to tell you about the Ocrim world, an out of the ordinary world. This is a world where dreams are not left behind but held in hand, a world where every new day is a new challenge, a world where you never live the same day twice. The energy and talent of those who live there is vital lymph.

It won’t be a perfect world and certainly not an easy one, but, for sure, those who will experience it will have great opportunities because they will be motivated by the passion to give the essence of their work and their lives.

In the ancient Roman language, there was an ‘adagio’ that sounded like this:

“Honor is a burden, a weight to be carried on your shoulders every day of your life.”

Although the word honour seems to be disappearing in the working world, honourability is a central characteristic feature buried in Ocrim’s DNA.

Ocrim takes care of its duty because it’s the main pinnacle; a romantic vision that takes me back to my childhood, where there is a much more intense reward, where each of us finds himself, finds his identity again and finds his independence. The reward today is the working industry. Learning to love your work and make your work loved is utmost important as the basis of every democracy.

Ocrim is a company similar to all successful companies, with extraordinary entrepreneurial stories which have decided that the world is an arena in which it wants to compete and get on the podium, linking industrial capabilities to product and brand.

Here is the commitment and duty to guarantee, with my brother Alberto, to my niece and nephew Annalisa and Andrea and to my sons Luca and Matteo. A business progress that is not limited to expanding markets but extends to research and development, safety at work and to everything that will be applicable to preserve our beautiful planet. Thanks to all the work force. Thanks to Alberto.

Ocrims Open Days in Cremona, Italy

Working with millers to reduce their operational costs

by Roger Gilbert and Niamh Cassidy, Milling and Grain

Away from its town-centre head office, Ocrim hosted it’s much postponed ‘Wheat, Flour and …’ Open Days 2022 at its factory complex, its Farmhouse and its new Milling Hub, all located between Italy’s River Po and the Milano-Cremona-Po Canal on the outskirts of Cremona

t was mid-September when milling industry events were getting into full swing, that Ocrim hosted its long-awaited Open Day 2022 in Cremona, Italy for 170 customers coming from over 20 countries.

The two-day event started on the afternoon of the first day with a welcome cocktail and a three-part conference session focused on energy usage in the flour mill and a technical explanation of how energy using could be minimised.

GRAIN, FLOUR AND … I

But first brothers Alberto and Sergio Antolini received visitors by both providing individual welcomes (see side bar) before getting down to the task in hand in the unusually warm weather conditions for the region, despite the open and airy space of the conference setting.

Maximising productivity while closely controlling energy consumption is still a focus of our industry globally and Ocrim’s decision to lead off with a session involving three presenters on this important subject was valued by the audience.

Energy in three parts

Simone Pedrini, Ocrim’s manager of its Mechanical Department provided an analysis of mechanical power transmission. He was followed by Ocrim’s manager of its Automation and Electrical Department, Paolo Molinari, who reviewed how millers might use automation to achieve energy saving in their mills.

Mr Pedrini along with his colleague Mr Molinari undertook the task of the equipment designer and manufacturer in helping millers reduce their energy usage. The detail was technical but not lost on this audience.

At one point Mr Pedrini turned his attention to the torque motor benefits and says that the lower the rpm the lower the efficiency a motor delivers, and possible below 90 percent. And not one torque motor fits all sizes.

“Torque motors must be electronically controlled, and their position and velocity monitored,” he added.

Bringing the discussion together was Mr Marco Galli, Ocrim’s director of its Technological Department who looked at power consumption and detailed operations

1: Professor Lorenzo Morelli - Food Science and Technology Department

Università Cattolica del Sacro in Cremona, Italy

2: Marco Galli, Ocrim’s director - Technological Department

3: Simone Pedrini, Ocrim’s manager - Mechanical Department

4: Paolo Molinari, Ocrim’s manager - Automation and Electrical Department

Right

5: Professor Stefano Boccaletti - Agro-food Economics Department, Università Cattolica del Sacro in Cremona, Italy spoke on ‘Nutrition and its complex path’

6: Mr Marco Galli presented twice during the event, once on energy savings and once on biodiversity and technology

that make a difference.

Mr Galli asked where a miller should start to look to reduce power consumption in the mill as today’s energy costs are the second highest cost, besides raw materials, in a flour mill.

The activities that impact power consumption include automation, equipment, technologies adopted and the plant layout.

“Layout and flows must be considered in power consumption evaluations.”

It’s monitoring these details that makes the difference in energy bills, he adds.

He offered a range of solutions including how to save on pneumatic lines that could return over €120,000 per year over traditional set ups. Pneumatic systems are the second highest energy consumer in the mill behind the rollermills.

Rollermills account for 41 percent, pneumatic fans 22 percent, blowing lines 10 percent, detaches five percent, aspiration two percent and the remaining equipment 20 percent.

The plant layout of lines along with the aspiration system savings could also be an area to review.

Plant reliability and capacity optimisation which eliminated unexpected downtimes would make a significant savings with 15-minute breaks cost about 300kW. A one tonne-perhour process would impact energy consumption by about five percent, ed added.

“Avoid useless product recycling, predict the correct final bin and reduce moisture losses.” He says each four transfer cycles based on 110kW is equal to €200 per cycle.

A brief debate closed the session.

A two-hour break gave everyone a chance to refresh before attending an al fresco country-style dining at the company’s Farmhouse when the focus was on relaxation, a barbecue and live music.

A full-on second day

The following day session two started with presentations around the topic of nutrition and once again involved three presenters who tackled the topic of ‘Yesterday, today ... and tomorrow: Changes in our nutrition.’ All three presenters were from Italy’s Università Cattolica del Sacro in Cremona.

Professor Stefano Boccaletti of the Agro-food Economics

Below

7: Professor Guendalina GraffignaPsychology Department, Università Cattolica del Sacro in Cremona, Italy presented ‘Passions, fears and nutritional anxieties: Amplified alarmism or awareness?’

8: Professor Edoardo Fornari, - Agrofood Economics Department, Università Cattolica del Sacro in Cremona, Italy spoke on ‘The impact of globalisation on food trends’

"Biodiversity and Technology - The perfect match for the healthy food of the future."

Alberto AntoliniOcrim’s future is in safe hands

Department addressed delegates on ‘Nutrition and its complex path’ before his colleague, Professor Edoardo Fornari, reviewed ‘The impact of globalisation on food trends.’

He pointed to the opportunity that today’s e-commerce offers to expand the marketplace especially coupled with the country-oforigin effect (COO) such as ‘Made in Italy’ where over 18,000 SMEs have successfully increased their activities to reach ¢600plus million and created 50,000 jobs.

He used pasta as an example of a successful Italian export that had secured just under 30 percent of the global export market in 2019 with Italian wine accounting for 20 percent of the global export market and Italian sunglasses 40 percent.

He also referred to “the other Pandemic” where future research was necessary in understanding the impact of junk food marketing to children and childhood obesity. IN 1975 0.9 and 0.7 percent of boys and girls in Italy were obese. In 2016 that has reached 7.8 and 5.6 percent respectively.

Another interesting face, and in an aside Professor Fornari mentioned that up to 85 percent of all shoppers’ decisions are made directly at the point-of-purchase.

From the Psychology Department, Professor Guendalina Graffigna presented her study results of trends in food purchasing under the title of ‘Passions, fears and nutritional anxieties. Amplified alarmism or awareness?’

However, one of the most intriguing presentations came after the break when Professor Lorenzo Morelli of the university’s Food Science and Technology Department discussed the topic ‘I’m not a celiac, but …’

He said the trend to gluten-free foods is rampant that has a “market in continuous growth at a rate of 27 percent per year.”

In Italy that is worth €320 million, but only €215 million is being spent by diagnosed patients.

“One in three products is in fact purchased by those who are not celiac and thus think they are losing weight or gaining wellbeing. But this is a false myth. There is no scientific research demonstrating the health benefits wrongly attributed to a glutenfree diet for those who are not celiac.”

To end the day’s deliberations Marco Galli reviewed the company ‘Biodiversity and Technology - The perfect match for the healthy food of the future.’

He told the audience that today it is possible to combine food security, production needs and biodiversity constraints and balance ancient with modern, safeguarding both animal and plant species without affecting the healthy livelihoods of an entire world population.

“Technology is the key to this balance,” he added.

“Otherwise, the risk is to exclude a large part of the world with unimaginable consequences.”

The opportunities offered by biodiversity include the preservation of the natural habitat of crops; benefit local farmers; allows the rediscovery of local crops that are almost forgotten and

Sergio Antolini opened proceedings with a personally crafted statement on the ‘World of Ocrim’ and role of millers in producing flour for humanity. Delegates enjoyed the detail of all presentations and the fresh and relaxing atmosphere created

to satisfy a market trend.

However, challenges could include the affect on the hygienic characteristics from grains from crops at risk

“We need greater knowledge and there will be a cost of production increase coupled with lower yields, from both agricultural and during processing.”

Automation offers greater production scheduling, a gain in traceability from raw materials through to final finish product. It also allows for preventative maintenance based on working hours and cycles, monitoring product stock quantity in storage bins and assists in energy monitoring to name a few.

He added that 20 percent of cereal production is lost during harvest and storage.

More attention needs to be paid to mycotoxin contamination and its reduction, which is a must as no technology currently exists to identify directly grains contaminated by mycotoxins.

However, the monitoring of grain temperature helps eliminate potential risks of hot spots which can jeopardise the quality of raw material while wheat cleaning assists in grain preservation, reducing the need for chemicals added during storage.

“How can we feed the whole world respecting biodiversity?

“The challenge must be to ensure that everyone has access to healthy and reliable food. Developing and combining innovative technologies to preserve biodiversity while maximize benefits of biodiversity to guarantee production based on quality and quantities must be the aim,” he adds.

The conference area - a new factory building presented a fresh yet sophisticated atmosphere

Al fresco ‘country-style’ dining at the new Ocrim Farmhouse located between it’s factory facility and the new Milling Hub

Once again, a debate closed this final session before the whole group gathered at Ocrim’s new Farmhouse situation between the factory and the new Milling Hub (which Milling and Grain will feature in next month’s edition) for an al fresco country-style evening at the end of the first day. On the second evening (after the second conference), the delegates were treated to a tour of the Cremona Violin Museum and a musical recital with the ‘Antonio Stradivari’ violin on the final evening - an unexpected, unique and captivating experience in a hall specifically built within the Museum for intimate violin concerts

On the second evening (after the second conference), the delegates were treated to a tour of the Cremona Violin Museum and a musical recital with the ‘Antonio Stradivari’ violin on the final evening - an unexpected, unique and captivating experience in a hall specifically built within the Museum for intimate violin concerts

EXPERIENCE THE DIFFERENCE

Whole vs refined grains

Findings of recent study indicates a link between grain choice & heart health

by Andrew Wilkinson, Milling and Grain magazine, UK

The invention of industrialised roller mills in the late 19th century changed the way we process grains. In the milling process, the bran and germ are stripped away, leaving only the soft, easy-to-digest endosperm.

Without the fibrous bran, the grain is much easier to chew. The germ is also removed because of its fat content, with this measure limiting the shelf life of processed wheat products. This means that the resulting highly processed grains are much lower in nutritional quality.

Although refining wheat does create fluffy flour that makes light, airy and great tasting breads and pastries, the process strips away more than half of wheat’s B vitamins, 90 percent of the

vitamin E, with most of the fibre also removed (https://mymag. info/e/1698).

Although some nutrients may be added back by fortification, other health-promoting components of whole grains such as phytochemicals cannot be replaced.

With this information in mind, it comes as no surprise that in recent years, advice about eating whole grains has almost become as commonplace as prods in the direction of consuming more fruits and vegetables.

Making a big difference

How seriously should we be taking this advice, how much does that ‘whole’ aspect of the grains that we consume really matter? Well, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology Middle East recently, this factor makes a big

Whole grains…

Have had very little removed in processing and contain all three parts of the grain including:

- The bran – the tough outer shell which contains fibre, B vitamins including folic acid, and minerals such as magnesium, iron and zinc.

- The endosperm – the starchy, middle part which is made of carbohydrate and some protein.

- The germ – the nutrient-rich inner part which, if germinated, would grow into the new plant. It contains some unsaturated fats, B vitamins, vitamin E, selenium, and other plant compounds called phytonutrients.

Whole grains offer a ‘complete package’ of health benefits, unlike refined grains, which are stripped of valuable nutrients in the refining process.

difference to our heart health.

During the study (more details of which can be read by following this link: https://mymag.info/e/1699), the researchers studied a sample of approximately 2000 men and women in Iran, most of whom had premature coronary artery disease (PCAD), which limits blood flow to the heart. They used a food frequency questionnaire to evaluate the potential impact of diet on their diagnosis.

In their conclusions, the researchers found that higher consumption of refined grains was associated with higher likelihood of having PCAD, while whole grain intake resulted in lower likelihood.

The study’s lead author Mohammad Amin Khajavi Gaskarei, MD, notes in a news release that there are many factors for why people may be consuming more refined grains, such as affordability or cultural norms.

That said, he also emphasises that the higher levels of consumption of these kinds of grains could be considered similar to consuming a diet containing a breadth of unhealthy sugars and oils.

Important for a variety of physiological functions

In terms of why whole grains may protect heart health, a large part of the influence is related to soluble fibre, according to Amanda Kostro Miller, RD, registered dietitian and medical reviewer at Botanical Institute.

She was not involved in the research, bust she states that this type of fibre, which is lacking or absent in refined grains, has been shown to potentially lower LDL cholesterol, the ‘bad’ kind that the US based Centers for

include: - Barley - Brown rice - Buckwheat - Bulgur (cracked wheat) F

- Millet - Oatmeal - Popcorn

Disease Control reports can raise risk for heart disease and stroke.

Ms Miller added that the bran in whole grains (which gets stripped out in refined grains) contains many B vitamins as well as minerals, which can also help heart health. Research supports this idea that B vitamins can protect the heart.

For example, research in the journal Stroke found an association between adequate intake of vitamin B6 and vitamin B9 (also known as folate) and a reduced risk of mortality from stroke, coronary heart disease, and heart failure.

In some cases, B vitamins as well as iron may be added back into a product, but soluble fibre is often not used to boost a refined grain option.

These recent findings are in line with recommendations from the American Heart Association, which notes that in addition to fibre and B vitamins, whole grains also include magnesium, iron, and selenium, which are important for a variety of physiological functions like forming new cells and carrying oxygen in the blood.

Examples of whole grains includes brown rice, buckwheat, millet, oatmeal, barley, quinoa, rye, wild rice, and many others. Choosing options like these will not only be helpful for your heart, Ms Miller adds, but they’ve also been shown to lower risk of diabetes, help you feel full longer, and provide a new way to get more diversity in your diet overall.

All three parts of the grain

‘Wholegrains’ are the seeds of cereal plants such as wheat, barley and rye. They have had very little removed in processing and contain all three parts of the grain, so they contain a wide range of nutrients.

In fact, whole grains offer a ‘complete package’ of health benefits, unlike refined grains, which are stripped of valuable nutrients in the refining process. All whole grain kernels contain three parts: the bran, germ, and endosperm. Each section houses health-promoting nutrients. The bran is the fibre-rich outer layer that supplies B vitamins, iron, copper, zinc, magnesium, antioxidants, and phytochemicals.

The germ is the core of the seed where growth occurs; it is rich in healthy fats, vitamin E, B vitamins, phytochemicals, and antioxidants. The endosperm is the interior layer that holds carbohydrates, protein, and small amounts of some B vitamins and minerals.

These components have various effects on our bodies, with bran and fibre slowing the breakdown of starch into glucose; thus, maintaining a steady blood sugar rather than causing sharp spikes.

Fibre has also been shown to help lower cholesterol as well as move waste through the digestive tract. It may also help prevent the formation of small blood clots that can trigger heart attacks or strokes.

Phytochemicals are natural chemical compounds in plants that have been researched for their role in disease prevention. Along with essential minerals such as magnesium, selenium and copper found in whole grains are also widely believed to be able to protect us against some forms of cancer.

Managing accurate dosing of liquid and powder additives

by El Mehdi El Ouahli, Global Solution Application Manager, R&I, Adisseo, Dubai

Theoretically, some ingredients can show interest at extremely low levels of inclusion and/or with an incredible accuracy, namely several digits after the decimal. With this in mind, the feed formulator is focused on optimising the best and most nutritious diet for the animals, at the right formula cost of course.

But this is just on paper as the plant has a major role to play then!

For some additives such as methionine, lysine, choline chloride, acids, enzymes among others, feed manufacturer has the choice between liquid and powder forms. Considering that the formula is given to the plant for implementation, there are many variables that affect the diet during the entire process.

Although reception and storage are essential operations, dosage can be seen as the first key step in the diagram, especially when looking at feed additives. When dosage is analysed, we must obviously target accuracy. This is not to neglect factory productivity, nor the investment and maintenance costs of the equipment or its reliability over time.

Dosing approaches

Dosing additives can be accomplished through two concepts: continuous or by batchwise approach. We will only deal here with

batch dosing. Measuring powder quantity is performed by scales which work with load cells converting mechanical energy into different forms such electrical outputs.

It can be performed either manually or automatically. Weighing manually powder additives consumes time, and doesn’t happen in parallel with the production, which increases the likelihood of cross contamination and/or inventory loss.

Plants weighing powders automatically should be also attentive to avoid cross contamination. Liquids use the same approach with weigher systems or by measuring the mass flow or volume flow through flowmeters.

There are many different types of flow meters. The most important are magnetic -inductive flowmeters, which works by virtue of Faraday’s induction principle and have an error less than one percent of the real value. It doesn’t require any mechanical measurements as it is counting based on analogue measurement signal and pulse output.

The Coriolis mass flowmeter with an accuracy reaching 0.5 percent works with Coriolis principle based on the contact of a mass moving against an oscillating transverse toward the direction of the motion.

Liquid systems are considered safe to use since they are enclosed, and the measuring part is done automatically without human intervention minimizing direct contact with the liquid additive. Specific precautions must be taken for IBCs, drums and

accurate measurement

- Grace Hopper, pioneer of computer programming

tanks during handling and connection and during maintenance.

Performance characteristics of dosing devices

When selecting a dosing device, it should be taken in consideration that the dosing element must be reliable, with a high accuracy, hygienic, not accumulating residues and easy to run with a low cost to operate and maintain.

The instrument’s measurement requires to know some important definitions which can be used for both flowmeters and scales, among them:

- Capacity: considered as the maximum ability of measurement that an instrument can perform

- Tolerance: difference between the maximum and the minimum dimensions of permissible errors. As example; a scale weighs 100 kg with a tolerance of +/- 5 % meaning that the value of the mass should be between 95 kg and 105 kg.

- Precision or repeatability: degree to which a given set of measurements of the same sample agree with their mean

- Reproducibility: ability of an instrument to give the same results of the same load even the users change

- Linearity: ability of the instrument to give same results of a defined load even it is divided on multiple loads

“One

is worth a thousand expert opinions.”

Automatic liquid dosing

Accuracy of a dosing system depends on how much the product flow is controllable. Smaller the controllable flow, better is the accuracy of the dosing system. Another important aspect to select a dosing system apart the precision is the rapidity and flow flexibility. To support difficult ingredients to flow, air hammers and vibro-dischargers can be added to the bins. Since accuracy is defined to be how close a measured value to the accepted or true value, scale accuracy might be influenced by:

- Dosing system accuracy

- Response time which load cell takes to present an accurate reading

- External or environmental factors such vibration, pneumatic transport, air pressure difference, other connected equipment temperature

- Internal factors such cleanliness, load cell accuracy

- Interference of moisture, temperature, radio frequency and magnets on electrical signals

- Maintenance like calibration and defected parts

Flowmeter accuracy is the degree of conformity of a measurement to standard or true value. As example, a flowmeter has a relative accuracy of +/-0.5%. When running at 100 kg/h, the absolute accuracy will be (+/-0.5%) (100kg/h) =+/-0.5 kg/h. Factors affecting flowmeter accuracy differ from type to another.

Generally, it is affected by the presence of bubbles in the fluid, pressure, temperature, liquid purity, and conversion data such density and temperature which can be source of wrong calculations. Liquid flow is controlled by control valves or pump frequency.

accuracy

Dosage

Dosing type Manual Automatic

Dosage range 0.33 to 15.75 kg 0.5 to 22.5 kg

Number of samples 302 dosages 5891 dosages

Minimum 85.70% 88.90%

Maximum 114.50% 111.10%

Average 100.10% 100%

Median 100% 100%

% Of dosage out of the acceptance of +/-5%

% Of dosage out of the acceptance of +/-10%

13% 0.10%

3% 0.03%

Comparison of automatic & manual dosing

An operational comparison between dosing automatically liquid and manually powder methionine has been performed in a feed mill in France. The study shows that:

- Automatic liquid dosing accuracy is higher than manual powder dosing scale accuracy when worker’s care is variable (see Figure 1)

- In liquid dosing, the higher the measured quantity will be, the better will be the flowmeter accuracy, while in powder there are no rules as it depends on many factors such users, linearity, fraction, scale accuracy and others. (See Figure 1)

Specialist in the design and build of installations for the grain-processing and compound feed industry

Ottevanger Milling Engineers is supplier of machines, installations and complete process lines for the compound feed industry and grain processing companies.

Our expertise in project management, engineering and production ensures the successful realization of machines, process lines and complete installations

devices to check the flow at the spot. The 2nd method is the laboratory calibration with stopwatch and bucket by two ways – either by taking time of filling a known bucket volume or just by fixing the time and weighing the dosed quantity and comparing it with the reading quantity.

The third method is the use of master meters where the flow of the device to be checked will be compared with the flow results of a standard device. For scales, accuracy check consists of using certified known weight loads to confirm if they match scale readings. One of the major problems facing powder scales is the level of emptying and cleanliness which is generally affected by the physical and chemical properties of the weighed products.

The feed millers should not focus only on accuracy, but they have to inspect in parallel the repeatability of the value to analyse the behaviour of the instrument and know how much it is reliable.

Conclusion

Selecting an ingredient form is not only the decision of the nutritionist or procurement based on nutrition factors or cost. Furthermore, it is a long journey study involving the knowledge of technological parts differentiating between liquid and powder. It starts by studying the physical and chemical properties of the ingredient, considering the safety, handling and storage preferences involved in the dosing of both forms to take a profitable decision.

Even with slight differences in application and used systems, dosing liquid additives can be applied with the same accuracy of powders and offers to feed millers and nutritionists flexibilities in terms of location, liquids quantity and solutions to overcome thermostability issues.

ACT IV (Part 2) THE STRADIVARI LOS GIGANTES

Bead is not an obvious food, but is, on the contrary, the result of a long production process and a refined food civilization.

The process is not so simple as it is not just a mixture of water and flour, but a process that requires experience and control of capable hands.

From the sowing to the harvesting of the wheat, from the threshing of the grains to their grinding to be converted into flour, from the dough of the flour with water and yeast to baking in the oven. The phenomenon of leavening, which man discovers in nature, but which he succeeds in replicating, is astonishing, and absolutely decisive.

The Egyptians, excellent farmers, were the first true bakers, systematically adopting the leavening technique, adding a piece of dough left over from the day before to the amalgam of flour and water.

A practice that much later will be called natural leavening.

A good leavening is the result of many factors, but the main one is the ability of the dough to form the gluten mesh, that is the structure that holds the starch and the leavening gases and gives the bread the right swelling.

In contact with water and in the presence of the mechanical energy of the dough, the proteins derived from flour (glutenine and gliadina) give rise to gluten or better, to the gluten mesh, a very resistant reticule that gives structure to the dough and makes it extensible, so that it does not break during leavening. This is the strength of the flour: the thicker the mesh, the greater the tenacity of the dough.

If the protein content of the flour is adequate, while the gluten mesh is being formed, at the same time the wheat enzymes (alpha and beta amylase) begin to attack the starches by breaking them

Author - Dr Sergio Antolini, President of Ocrim and Paglierani, Italy

down and transforming them from complex sugars into simple sugars.

If added to the dough, the yeasts begin their action: the various types of microorganisms feed on simple sugars and begin to grow and reproduce.

The sourdough is the yeast par excellence, the eternal yeast of common use in traditional bread making: a simple dough of flour and water, which left for some time in the air, as if by magic, ferments naturally.

This compound is teeming with microorganisms, present both in the flour and in the surrounding environment: a real culture in which, in addition to many different strains of fungi. There are bacteria that participate in fermentation by producing lactic and acetic acid and allowing the baking processes to be enriched, during cooking, of aromatic compounds, giving the bread a varied range of flavours.

At the time of ancient Rome, the inhabitants of Rome still fed on a simple porridge of flour, while in Greece a kind of pastry cooked on the fire was common; only through the Egyptians, master bakers, did the Mediterranean populations learn the art of baking, perfecting the technique even with the construction of ovens.

“It is white that the ethereal snow wins in candour,” the eulogy of Archestratus of Gela (4th century BC) continues: “Allow yourself the loaves of Thessaly called krimnitas, which the whole world knows as chondrinos. Excellent, too, is the flour bread that is produced for the Athens market, for every mortal; just as good is the bread that is baked from the ovens of Eritrea, where grapes grow abundantly in every delicate, rich moment of the seasons: it will delight you at banquets.”

The baking of bread in Rome was introduced in 168 BC by some slaves captured in Macedonia, after the defeat of King Perseus.

At the same time the grinding activities were perfected, with the art of milling, and at the same time the first shops for sale arose.

During the Roman Empire, bread, which had become the staple food for a large part of the population, was guaranteed to everyone: panis streptipcius, an ancestor of today's pizza (a light mixture of flour, water, milk, oil, lard and pepper, quickly cooked in thin sheets), artologalum (a kind of pastry that served

The bread from the ground to the table

as an appetizer), panis adipatus (seasoned with pieces of lard and bacon), panis testicius (ancestor of the Romagna piada), prepared and consumed by the legionaries in their camps.

A bread named ador was reserved for the sacrificial offerings, the palatius for the imperial tables and the white and very fine siligineus for those of the rich.

While the black panis plebeius appeared on the poor man's table, gladiators and athletes ate the nutritious canfusaneus, the soldiers' saddlebag contained the castrensis and the nautilus was on the ships.

With the barbarian invasions in the Middle Ages, bakery slowed down, leaving only the art of bakery to the monasteries. A clear resumption of the use of bread is rediscovered in the Renaissance, a period in which each social category has its own at disposal: the bread of the pope and that of the king, the bread of the knight and that of the esquire.

In the Italy of the 1600s, poverty was rampant, and on the eve of the great shortage of food that preceded the "Manzonian plague" of 1630, an unknown citizen of Parma wrote:

"If a warning were to be held in all the cities there would be no more famine, because undoubtedly God provides food for all, and to those peoples who lack it is due to their lack of it and of bad governance and of their own interest, which many times it is the cause that poverty suffers great disadvantages, and mainly in the provision of bread and forment (the main food of the Almighty God for the sustenance of man) with which poverty is maintained daily without any other comparison.”

With this thought, the anonymous author divides the food universe into two categories: the first occupied exclusively by

bread (the main food of the Almighty God for man's sustenance), the second enlarged to include all the rest of the most different foods, called compote (comparison). In the 17th Century unpopular taxes weighed on bread, from the tax for flour to the duty for cooking in the ovens owned by manor property.

Bread has had and still has a great role in history, because the history of bread has always been inextricably intertwined with that of the poorest and most painful part of the populations.

The lack of bread (or the only fear of not having any) is a nightmare that constantly winds through the history of humanity.

The oven of Gruccie, as told by Alessandro Manzoni in his Promessi Sposi, was the shop in Milan, in Corsia dei Servi (today Corso Vittorio Emanuele) which was attacked by the revolting crowd, on St Martin's Day in 1628, against the price of bread.

Immediately after the revocation of the calmiere imposed by Ferrer (the Grand Chancellor of the State of Milan who exercised the office between 1619 and 1635), the crowd knocked down the door and entered the oven, plundering everything he succeeded in, taking away and wasting a large amount of flour.

The rioters abandoned themselves to the senseless destruction of the shop, removing various furnishings and tools and then burn them in a large bonfire in Piazza del Duomo. Renzo also attended the assault, who had just arrived in the city, and who limited himself to observing things from the outside without taking part in the riots.

In the 19th Century the oven was refurbished by Ambrogio Valentini and finally closed in 1919 (later the house was demolished).

"The food of this banquet shall be of fourteen ordered manners, that is, fourteen songs of love, as materiated virtues, which without the present bread had of any obscure shadow, so that to many beauty more than they were able Bontade. But this bread, that is, this provision, will be the light which every colour of their judgment will make parvente."

Dante Alighieri, Convivio

The city as a large canteen (banquet), which offers to the participants (i.e. to those who have a desire to know and know) a difficult dish accompanied by bread, which will facilitate its assimilation.

The songs will correspond to the food, while the various explanatory comments to the bread.

Volcano City Carlo

Ravaioli

The theme of the volcano and the city is part of a cycle of five works cantered on the sense of precariousness of the world and on the greatness and power of nature as opposed to the interference of men. Through these works, where urban landscapes and natural landscapes coexist, the artist offers an opportunity for reflection on the emptiness and groundlessness of the claims of men towards nature and its resources.

A city climbs, climbs up a slope to the crater, covering every millimetre of the cone's surface which is dominated by thousands of buildings. The city is apparently empty, but not lifeless, and a suspended atmosphere of calm and tranquillity seems to hover over the houses, defined with precise attention.

But this sense of stillness is contrasted above by the bubbling of the lava whose glows can be glimpsed from the mouth of the crater. And precisely in this encounter between two opposites man stands, capable of challenging the power of nature, trying to harness its power in his favour, but always and in any case at the mercy of it.

Making bread made us human

Literature also sanctions the universality of wheat and bread in our days:

"(...) we will cultivate earth and planets on wheat, bread to every mouth, to every man, everyday it will come because we sowed it, why we did it not for a man but for everyone (...)."

(Pablo Neruda)

After 10,000 years, Wheat and Bread are still in our fields and on our tables, but in addition to the times, the spaces have also expanded enormously: the few hundred meters that separated the field from the oven have become thousands of kilometres. Wheat is now grown all over the world and bread has not lost its soul, but it certainly risks losing its freshness.

Bread in the Mediterranean Basin

it was a particularly popular cult food.

In Judea, the name of a city, Bethlehem, Beit Lehem in Hebrew, literally means house of bread. Not surprisingly in Bethlehem would be born whom in the Gospels defines himself as the bread of life.

Jesus offers humanity the gift-forgiveness

of his body transubstantiated into Eucharistic bread. It is no coincidence that the prayer of Christians puts together the Our Father and daily bread, among those who do not eat because they have no food and those who waste it because they have too much. Today, it is more true than ever what an old Gypsy proverb says: "While the rich dream their dreams, the poor dreams of bread".

“Always dear to me was this hermitage hill, and this hedge, which goes so far of the last horizon the gaze excludes. But sitting and looking, take it forever spaces beyond that, and superhuman silence, and very deep stillness in my thoughts I pretend, where for a little while the heart is not afraid. And like the wind

I hear rustling among these plants, I that one infinite silence to this voice

I am comparing and I remember the eternal, and the dead seasons, and the present and alive, and the sound of her. So, between this infinity my thoughts drown: and shipwreck is sweet for me in this sea.”

Giacomo Leopardi

A state of anguish due to the indefinite presence of which we know nothing, but that supports us with invisible arms, that protects us with a red cloth ... underlying our balance, our permanent centre of gravity: "And the shipwreck is sweet to me in this sea.”

Unconscious Davide Conti

In this work Davide Conti re-elaborates one of the most powerful iconographies from an emotional and symbolic point of view in the history of the figurative arts, the so-called Vesperbild, the image of vespers, defined in this way since it refers to the moment in which the Virgin collects hugging the body of her son taken down from the cross on the evening of Good Friday. In the arms of the mother lies Christ who with his extreme sacrifice is bringing to fulfilment his divine essence, but at the same time, he has become even more human. His flesh, his body, at the very moment of death, became even more earthly to be welcomed in that last sweet embrace in the arms of Mary, in whose pain the passions of every human being are reflected and amplified. But here the woman, the mother is no longer, replaced by an indefinite presence and instead of the sore face of Mater the void welcomes the observer. And in that void which is, however, presence and at the same time attracts to itself and rejects, suffering and despair no longer resound, but inhabit the unknown, a sense of infinity and unfathomable. And it is precisely to this emptiness that Christ who transfigured himself into the emblem of the perfect synthesis between opposites, the divine and the human become the same, and who represents, according to the Jungian reading, the symbolic expression of that Self, of that totality, in which the “complexio oppositorum,” the synthesis of opposites, finds fulfilment precisely.

Man is what he eats Ludwig Feuerbach

Although today only concrete things are considered true, food, in addition to its nutritional value, is a metaphor for existence and for the symbolic values of symposium, friendship, community gathering.

Reconnecting to the ancient model of Hippocrates, the founder of Western medicine, food establishes that the human being is omnivorous, identifies belonging to a food culture rather than another, selects the social class, recalls the diet received as children: somehow food identifies and shapes the identity.

"A doctor must know what a man is in relation to what he eats, what he drinks and his whole regime of life and what consequences each one derives from." (Hippocrates)

The evils are often those that we have produced, because we do not avoid the avoidable ones, that is, those that come from the food we eat, from the water we drink, from the air we breathe, from the places we live.

For the ancient Greeks there were two food regimes, dairy products and vegetables for the poor, meat for the rich and for the priests who gave this a sacred value, using it for rituals and sacrifices to the gods.

The Romans were the first to introduce a sort of globalized diet, thanks to the import of food from the colonies, which however changed with the collapse of the Empire, returning simple, poor for the poor and rich for the powerful, princes, feudal lords, vassals or men of the Church, who ate so much meat until they died of gout.

It was in the 15th Century that a real Italian cuisine began, a cuisine of excellence compared to the European one. Mantua, Modena and Ferrara were the capitals of the Renaissance cuisine of the Palazzo, sophisticated and accurate, which was so successful in the courts that it became the object, for its opulence and beauty, of 15th and 16th Century paintings.

The most recent diet sees fasting, the ethics of mortification, the distancing of desire from its satisfaction, the application of the sacrifice of the penitent, stripped of all religious connotation, to a diet, which at the distance of desire replaces motivations of social acceptance, the result of precise aesthetic conditioning.

Food globalization intervened by confusing our ancient brain, the emotions, the terminal senses of taste and smell, entangling the memory of the memory. The reminiscences of infantile foods, of the country food, of the pivotal foods of our culture, end up losing the olfactory and gustatory memory in favour of the never satisfied pleasure of the modernity of foods belonging to distant cultures, in search of continuous novelties, in a cyclical one after the other, where the old novelty leaves space to the illusion of the new.

The comparison with inner stability is easy: we are no longer faithful to taste because our brain, our ancient memory, is disoriented. The need for fast, perennial, fleeting change refers to the search for a lost inner stability.

The art of cooking has sensationally passed from the table to television, becoming a media tool, making chefs more important than poets, painters, sculptors, musicians.

In the hypnosis of an anomalous wave of images, in reality we no longer cook and we increasingly resort to frozen foods or precooked foods, diverting our brain to recognize unnatural tastes and sensations.

The nervous system can no longer identify what it likes and what it doesn't.

In this oblivion, however, still 900 million people of the world population still suffer from hunger.

The ship, with its Argonaut, is lost in infinity ...

All humanity is therefore called to abandon itself to that void to that unfathomable that becomes a mirror of the known and unknown essence of the human being. Sergio Antolini, businessman, born in Rimini on January 26, 1957 and raised in Santarcangelo di Romagna, the "family" town, after completing his studies, at the age of 24, he dedicated and controlled, together with his brother Alberto, the business founded by his maternal grandfather, Fernando Paglierani, in 1926, and later developed by his father Primo.

The industrial group is active in the mechatronic sector (production of machines for filling bags), in the construction of milling plants (wheat and corn mills), it extends into food (pasta and flour) and agriculture, with the cultivation of cereals, rice and medicinal plants.

His work leads him to frequent and continuous travels, in five continents, making him a citizen of the world.

Sergio, together with his brother Alberto, hold numerous industrial patents for machines for packaging powders, as well as machinery for grinding wheat.

Last but not least, to them the rediscovery of the stone mill for the revenge of the "forgotten flours," obtained by grinding ancient grains. In 2014, together with his sons Luca and Matteo, with the contemporary reconversion of a location of great historical value, located along the ancient Decumano Massimo of the Roman town of Rimini, he created Augeo, a space dedicated to exploring the different languages of the art scene national and international.

As producer of the video performance "Sulla retta via," created by the artist Filippo Berta, in which a line of people moves along the shore of a deserted beach, that of Rimini, shares the suggestive metaphor of the impossibility of man to find a balance between his own intuitive-emotional nature and the role that society imposes, which conditions and corrupts the individual essence.

In 2015, again as a producer, he promotes on this occasion site-specific works by the duo Guerra de la Paz, who arrived from Miami for their Rimini residence.

In 2019 Sergio supports for charity with the event of art, culture, music, cinema, theatre and dance, in the great "premiere" dedicated to Collodi's puppet, a project coordinated by Amici di Augeo and the Papa Giovanni XXIII Association for sharing among the peoples.

In January 2020 culture and solidarity are again present in Augeo with the show "Cosmic Ballerina," which sees the participation of students from the La Scala Theatre Academy in Milan.

The charity event is in favour of the "Segno" association, a shelter for minors tried by a dramatic past.

Again, in January 2020, he expresses himself with "Snaporaz the journey," of which he is the creator and director, a talk show in homage to "The city of women" by F. Fellini on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the film and in the context of the celebrations of the centenary of the birth of the Rimini director, in the presence of the semiologist Paolo Fabbri, the poet Rosita Copioli and the director Marco Bertozzi.

In December 2020 he contributes to the volume Pantagruel published by the publishing house "Nave di Teseo."

Why understanding what the right configuration for your operation is key COMMODITY HANDLING EQUIPMENT

by Andrew Head, Sales Director, BDC Systems Ltd, UK

With increased uncertainty around energy costs, both commercial grain operators, millers and farmers alike are struggling to make accurate forecasts as to exactly what they are going to have to pay.

It has perhaps never been so important for business organisations of all sizes, where grain handing is an integral part of their overall operation, to be using the right equipment for the right commodity. It is all about the right horses for the right courses.

Using the right equipment for the right commodity will help to ensure that each piece of machinery is working at optimal efficiency and therefore not wasting valuable energy attempting to handle commodities that can, and should, be handled more efficiently.

This article aims to provide advice for milling operators around what they need and what they should be considering when selecting the equipment for the mechanical handling of incoming commodities into their storage silos before the milling process begins.

However, much will also apply to commercial grain operators and farmers when handling grain, as it enters their processing plants for storage, before being sold.

A chain & flight conveyor

When the commodity arrives at a milling plant it is tipped via a tailgate sock into a trench intake conveyor. The type of commodity determines the type of conveyor best able to handle it.

For free-flowing material such as wheat or oil seed rape we would recommend a chain and flight conveyor as the grain is able to self-flow into the machine and is easily moved inside the conveyor without damage to the crop.

Chain and flight conveyors are generally made from pregalvanised steel or mild steel which is then hot dipped for longer life. Normally these conveyors are fitted with direct drive motor gearboxes and the chains have plastic or steel flights. A variety of inlet and outlet options are available including hand operated,

motorised or electro pneumatic (EP) slides.

Safety features include rotation sensors, blockage flap switches and inspection windows. Where it is important to prevent the escape of airborne dust, the commodity enters the milling plant via a conveyor which is located in an intake booth fitted with aspiration capabilities.

It is also important to understand the ability to install a rubble separator, magnet and simple aspiration system at the intake to remove any large foreign objects and airborne dust.

The removal of foreign objects is key in order to avoid potential damage to machines operating downstream with the milling plant. This can be achieved using a simple reciprocating or rotary screen machine.

If the commodity entering the milling plant is non free flowing, for example soymeal or soya, then we would recommend a screw conveyor. The advantage with the screw is that it draws the material into the conveyor and keeps it moving, avoiding bridging of the commodity.

Available options

From the trench intake the commodity is then transported via belt and bucket elevators to the storage hoppers before being transported to the milling process. As with chain and flight conveyors the majority of belt and bucket elevators are manufactured from pre-galvanised sheet, or mild steel which is hot dipped for longevity. These conveyors are fitted with direct drive motor gearboxes, oil resistant belting, boot rotation sensors and clean-out doors.

Available options include seed boots, front and back inlets, head access platforms and access ladders, explosion panels and belt alignment switches. The feeding of the belt and bucket elevators once again depends on the commodity being taken from the intake to the hoppers.

If the material is light and non-free-flowing i.e., soymeal, the belt and bucket elevator should be back-fed enabling the buckets to draw in and scoop the material into the elevator.

With free-flowing material the belt and bucket elevator is generally front-fed as it is easy for the buckets to lift the material in flight. With the design of some elevators the capacity remains the same whether front or back fed.

Whether the material is front or back fed into the elevator, once it reaches the elevator head the centrifugal force discharges the

Skandia belt and bucket elevator in situ within a milling operation

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easily accessible digital services and phytase expertise.

material from the buckets. The material is then transported to storage hoppers via chain and flight or screw conveyors.

Determining the type of hoppers

Most of the material entering milling plants is stored in selfemptying hoppers and yet again the type of material being stored will determine the type of hoppers.

Free-flowing commodities are stored in 45 degree hoppers whereas those that are non-free flowing are stored in screw discharge or 60 degree hoppers, with expansion outlets. Milling operations are tightly controlled and the importance of avoiding downtime cannot be underestimated.

Operators who look closely at the build quality and reliability of the conveying and aspiration equipment they install are taking an important step in ensuring that, as far as possible, downtime is prevented from the conveying element of the milling process. Before investing in new equipment or upgrading ageing systems it is key that operators carefully research the solutions and systems that are currently available. They should be investigating how equipment has been manufactured and whether suppliers can back-up their claims of robustness and reliability.

Has it been constructed from pre-galvanised steel or mild steel which has been hot dipped for longer life ensuring its ability to withstand all weathers? Does it have overlapping seams and sealed joints to prevent the ingress of adverse weather conditions and dirt?

Withstanding the most stringent demands

Conveyors and elevators must be designed to withstand the most stringent demands of milling, commercial operators and

large farming enterprises which rely on equipment operating all day, every day, all the time i.e., 24/7/365!

Skandia Elevator has been designing and manufacturing grain handling equipment for more than 100 years. It has vast experience of the marketplace and the needs of its customers which include milling and commercial grain operators, and farming enterprises of all sizes.

With a clear understanding that time is money, Skandia Elevator designs conveyors, elevators and aspiration equipment that is robust, reliable and deployed throughout the world. In fact, some of its equipment has been in use for more than 30 years and is still in good condition - a testament to its highquality build!

Its conveyors and elevators, able to transport most dry, granulated and pulverised materials, are manufactured from pre-galvanised steel or mild steel which has been hot dipped (in accordance with the EU Machinery Directive) and so, if necessary, can be safely installed outside.

An important feature of Skandia conveyors is that they are available in models that are capable of working horizontally, vertically, including at slopes of 15, 30 and 45-degrees and can be curved to fit within restricted environments.

Fitted with self-regulating inlets the equipment cannot be fed by more than the specified capacity which the machine can handle, regardless of the commodity. This feature takes place with no adjustments necessary and helps to achieve reliability.

Designed as a result of listening to Skandia customers its H-Line range, specifically designed to meet the stringent requirements of milling, commercial grain operators and large farming enterprises, has the capacity to handle up to 600 tonnes

per hour (tph) based on clean wheat.

With a focus on the simplification of service and maintenance, the H-Line elevator hood is a two-piece unit, inspection hatches in the legs are larger and the boot has two extra cleaning hatches, as does the drive head. These smart solutions provide convenient access which helps to significantly reduce downtime.

A complete assembly

To further improve maintenance the H-Line elevator’s head pulley, bearings, top shaft and drive can now all be removed as a complete assembly.

The H-Line elevator’s hood and head design has been developed using extensive simulations and calculations. The result is that the hood follows the trajectory of the material minimising wear and, importantly, damage to the material itself. Additionally, all internal contact surfaces are fitted with plastic wearing plates which are all bolted in position so easily replaced if required.

Installed up to a height of 70 metres, the H-Line’s Very Long Elongation (VLE) belt means that although the elevator is high, the belt stretches considerably less so has a longer service life, reducing the need for re-tensioning.

The design of the H-Line range of elevators and conveyors shows the importance of equipment manufacturers continuously listening to their customers. The increased access allowing easier maintenance is a key need for mill intakes, commercial operators and large farming enterprises.

Whether you are looking to equip a new milling plant or upgrade an existing commodity handling facility, it is key that

you take the advice of an expert within the marketplace.

One size does not fit all

Seeking the services of an advisor who understands the importance of listening to what customers are saying so that he/she has a real feel for the issues and challenges they are facing.

A trusted advisor will also understand that each individual customer has individual requirements and that very often a ‘one size fits all’ does not! Often, customers have a pre-conceived idea around what solution or which piece of kit will take their pain away.

Understanding exactly what a customer wants to achieve from a new piece of equipment, allows a trusted advisor to recommend solutions that exactly fit the bill. That very well may not be what you thought you wanted but exactly what you need!

https://bdcsystems.com

Skandia belt and bucket elevator in situ within a milling operation

Skandia chain and flight conveyor feeding day bins in situ within a milling operation

TUBULAR DRAG CONVEYORS

Debunking six common misconceptions relating to their use in feed processing

by Del Williams, Technical writer, Torrance, California

For owners and managers of feed, grain, and allied grain processing facilities, walking onto the production floor with conveyor tubes winding this way and that, in and out of machinery can seem at first like they have stepped into a Dr Seuss book or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie.

For example, at a glance even feed and grain industry veterans can be challenged to distinguish whether the conveyor tubes they see are screw (augur), pneumatic, vacuum, aeromechanical, tubular drag chain and disc or tubular drag cable and disc.

In fact, many owners, managers, specifiers, architects, engineers, and other professionals lack substantial technical or hands-on experience with such conveyors.

This knowledge gap can result in extreme consequences when delicate or precise feed and grain blends must be reliably conveyed but instead, costly product destruction or inaccurate blends occur.

Misconceptions relating to tubular drag cable and disc conveyors will be the focus of this assessment, addressing six widely held viewpoints in the industry. Correcting these misconceptions can help feed and grain facility owners and managers not only improve product quality but also productivity, efficiency and profitability.

Tubular drag cable conveyors gently move product through a sealed tube using a coated, flexible stainless-steel drag cable pulled through on a loop. Solid circular discs (flights) are attached to the cable, which push the product through the tube without the use of air. These conveyors excel in transporting delicate, precise feed and grain blends in versatile layouts and configurations.

Misconception #1 – ‘Conveyors are not designed to protect blends and mixes’

When transporting a blend of feed and grain product or supplement with a conveyor system, maintaining a consistent mix ratio is essential, whether a coarse mix, fine powder, or larger variable-sized amalgams of different weights and shapes. However, conventional conveyor systems are not specifically designed to precisely transport blends without changing the mix ratio. Various product material weights, sizes, and shapes can shift and disperse in open systems like bucket conveyors, and vibration can cause the blended product to shift throughout transport.

Vacuum and pneumatic systems can cause smaller lightweight particles in a feed and grain blend to move at different speeds than heavier or larger particulates, resulting in significant blend restructuring when the product reaches its discharge point.

In contrast, tubular drag cable conveyors are engineered to maintain precise blend ratios, which can be important to feed and grain industry professionals from nutritionists to farmers feeding livestock, according to Karl Seidel.

He is marketing director of Cablevey Conveyors, a mechanical conveyor manufacturer that serves the feed and grain, pet food, specialty food, coffee, powder and nut markets.

As an example, the company’s engineers have resolved the blending issue with a completely enclosed, compartmentalised tubular conveyor system.

“Not unlike an endless succession of train cars, each space between solid circular discs holds a predefined volume of product. Based on the manufacturer’s specifications and requirements, engineers can calculate the optimal speed of the system, the most appropriate tube angles, and the proper construction design to guarantee their blended feed and grain

product remains consistent from input to discharge, even at high volumes,” comments Mr Seidel.

His company has designed, engineered, and serviced enclosed cable and disc tube conveyors for 50 years in over 66 countries.

Misconception #2 – ‘These conveyors are the same as a screw system’

“One of the most common misconceptions is that tubular drag cable and screw conveyors are identical, which is far from the case,” adds Mr Seidel.

Screw systems, also known as auger conveyors, typically utilise a helical blade that moves granular materials within a tube. However, augurs can cause product damage and compromise blends. So, the units tend to be an option when material integrity is not critical, such as when conveying food waste.

“The key difference to look for is that augurs convey material with a helical screw. The transfer speed is directly proportional to the rotation speed of the screw,” notes Mr Seidel.

On the other hand, tubular drag cable conveyors transfer material between two discs pulled by a sealed cable and are designed to

protect delicate feed and grain products and blends.”

Misconception

hot material’

#3 – ‘Conveyors cannot carry moist or

Tubular drag cable systems like Cablevey’s convey feed and grain in a wide variety of forms and states including whole, pellet, powdered, moist or hot with throughput rates up to 80,000lbs per hour. The systems can convey material with high moisture content if some water is being conveyed along with the product.

Whilst the tubular conveyors are constructed of plastic components, the standard units are designed to operate at 180°F (82°C) with a high-temperature option up to 230°F (110°C), so can receive the product from dryers or even ovens, according to Seidel.

Misconception

limitations’

#4 – ‘Conveyor footprint and expansion

Some in the feed and grain industry do not consider tubular conveyors because they believe that the systems cannot fit within their facility’s available space or accommodate its layout, which may include significant inclines or elevation changes.

However, this is not the case.

Modular systems like tubular drag cable conveyors are an excellent option for complex layouts that could require curves or changes in direction, according to Mr Seidel.

“Tubular conveyors do not have to be installed at 90 degrees and can use angles so can go in between, around, above or below existing feed and grain equipment or other obstacles. That is important for existing facilities that may not have the flexibility to move something out of the way,” adds Mr Seidel.

In addition, tubular conveyors are quite space efficient. Seidel notes that to conserve space, the conveyor turnaround and its inlet can stand on end, so it is only one foot across instead of three.

If conveyor discharge occurs best using gravity, tubing can be run through walls and discharge out of the building roof, which saves interior space.

Misconception #5 – ‘Conveyors are indoor installation only’

It is a misconception that tubular conveyors are only installed indoors. In fact, it is common to see portions of feed and grain equipment extending outdoors. This may occur when conveying product from outside to inside such as when unloading raw material from a truck or railcar or loading finished product into similar transport.

Materials may also travel from a feed mill to a production or packaging room which may be ten feet or even one hundred feet away.

According to Clint Hudson, Cablevey Conveyors Engineering Manager, when some equipment is used outdoors, and when moving moist product, it can be helpful to wrap the tubes in heat tape to prevent moisture from condensing or freezing in the tubes.

The conveyor manufacturer can also provide a range of accommodations to account for the effects of wind, dust, rain, insects, and direct sunlight.

Misconception #6 – ‘Cleaning requires dismantling and extended downtime’

Between product changeovers, many traditional conveyor systems must be disassembled, cleaned, or soaked, and then reassembled – a labour and time-intensive process. However, this is not necessary for tubular conveyors.

With tubular conveyors dry, wet, and in-line cleaning options are available, according to Hudson. Among dry options, brush boxes and air-knives can clean the cable. Brushes and wipers can wash the tubes. To sanitise, a sponge soaked in sanitiser can be used without getting the system fully wet.

For the most thorough cleansing, the cable conveyor’s wet cleaning process internally washes the tube in several steps, starting with a water rinse followed by a foaming agent, a sanitizing rinse, and a final water rinse. Once the system is thoroughly flushed out, drying is achieved by attaching urethane wipers to the tubular conveyor’s discs, which ‘act like a squeegee’ to remove any residual water.

Whilst first impressions of tubular drag cable and disc conveyors can evoke images of Dr Seuss or Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, the equipment has been carefully designed and engineered for industrial performance, reliably conveying delicate products and blends in a variety of conditions.

With an understanding of the true potential of these conveyors, feed and grain industry professionals will be well-positioned to take advantage of the systems’ abilities to increase quality production and decrease downtime.

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We are

Russia: Bull or bear?

Russia remains the dominant influence on wheat prices, but is arguably offering something for bears as well as bulls this month.

Amongst the former have been Russian private analysts estimates that this top wheat exporter may have produced as much as 100m tonnes this year – a new record high, nine million more than recently forecast by the US Agriculture Department, 20m more than expected a few months ago and 25m more than it actually produced last year. It eclipses the estimated 13m tonne drop in wartorn Ukraine’s crop.

by John Buckley

Not surprisingly, Russian exports have been expanding recently, grabbing much of the big ‘optional origin’ business from countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, maybe Pakistan. Under the competition, EU suppliers, earlier expecting to cash in on Ukraine’s diminishing exports have been forced to start revising down their own seasonal export forecasts.

Yet at the time of going to press, Russia is also reasserting bullish influence on the global market. Amid its annexation of large parts of Ukraine, threats to defend these with all available means (nuclear?), its suspected involvement in gas pipeline disruption and renewed rocket attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, wheat traders have been forced to once again to pencil in the risk of major disruption to the region’s ocean-going grain exports.

The effect is shown on the charts, the bellwether CBOT futures’ front month jumping from a low of US$7.52/bushel (when Russia agreed to let Ukraine resume ocean freight) to a recent high of almost US$9.50.

Unusually wet weather

Fortunately for consumers, especially those reliant on imports, the wheat trade can look to some more promising developments among other major wheat supplying nations.

Canada’s crop, for example, has rebounded from last year’s drought-ravaged 22.3m to 35m tonnes. Australia seems likely to produce at least 33m tonnes, it’s third massive harvest in a row (average 34m over the previous two seasons) compared with the normal low 20’s. There is a caveat though – the unusually wet weather will possibly reduce the proportion of good milling wheat in the country’s eastern region.

Hopes have been dashed for a 3.7m tonne rebound in former top exporter the USA’s crop to 48.5m tonnes, more recent estimates closer to 45m. Yet this does include one of its biggest high quality spring wheat components for years (12.1 versus last season’s 8.1m).

Amidst this increase, the benchmark Dark Northern Spring fob Gulf price has not just been falling but, unlike all other major US grades, was recently significantly cheaper than at this time last year! It may also help offset this year’s expected lower quality from Russia, Ukraine and France.

On the downside, summer drought and heatwaves did reduce EU initial estimates to around 135m tonnes versus last year ’s 138m, while India’s crop is down to around 103m from last year’s 109.6m (but at least seems not to have dropped to 93/95m tonne range that was circulating among some local analysts a few weeks ago).

Argentina also has some dry weather problems curbing planting and leading to forecasts of a crop decline from last year’s 22.5m tonnes to 19m, some say as low as 16.5m tonnes.

Even so, world wheat production estimates for the current 2022/23 season are better than a few months ago. The International Grains Council recently raised its forecast to a record 792m tonnes which, if including the new higher Russian estimates above (but excluding recent lower US and Argentine forecasts) might have placed the total closer to 800m tonnes. The latest USDA summary has world output of around 782m versus last year’s 780m but could go up if higher Russian estimates prove accurate.

Other ‘Black Sea’ wheat news

The Kremlin claims that the safe-passage shipping deal with Ukraine was not helping developing countries, the lion’s share of the grain going to less needy Europe. What Russia might do about that was unclear. Physically intervening in Ukraine’s export plans would not help either country’s existing or prospective customers who had been watching Russian export prices falling under pressure from its own harvest and the Ukraine export agreement.

Local analysts had forecast Russia could export as much as 43/46m tonnes of wheat this season versus last year’s 33m. While Ukraine has been mainly shipping maize for animal feed, it was on the verge of upping exports of wheat for human consumption. Another question is the extent to which Russia’s crop increase will translate to exports if that contributes to further weakening prices.

- quotas and duties - increase?

So far, that seems less likely amid hints that quotas could be dropped. Russia’s role is also complicated this season by a drop in its milling quality – the trade reportedly expecting only 60 percent to make the grade against 82 percent from last year’s smaller crop.

Will government intervention

“Global food use of wheat is forecast to reach a fresh peak in 2022/23, but with annual growth less than half of its prior five-year average. Inflated prices are set to limit per capita consumption in some regions, notably in subSaharan Africa.” – IGC on Twitter

Ukraine’s bottled-up old crop stocks can supplement its 2023/4 supplies, but its much smaller 2022 wheat crop is still expected to reduce its 2022/3 exports which the USDA sees dropping to 11m from last season’s 18.8m tonnes.

Wheat outlook for 2023

- The wheat price rally came despite a strengthening dollar, reaching two-decade highs and inhibiting exports from the US, the former top supplier. US winter wheat planting for the 2023 crop has meanwhile started normally on what is expected by some to be the largest area since 2015/16 – though it too faces some potential issues with lower than usual rainfall and soil moisture.

- Prospects for Europe’s winter-wheat planted area for 2023 have brightened with recent rain, easing fears of a repeat of the drought that spoiled this year’s initially promising crop.

- Ukraine is still expected to be the main acreage loser next year but with wheat prices about 30% over their long term range, the incentive for others to help fill that gap remains strong - albeit offset by higher fuel and fertiliser costs.

- CBOT forward wheat futures continue strong despite the up-rated global crop forecasts. The December 2023 position is a mere two percent cheaper than current deliveries. The USDA forecast for the 2022/23 seasonal average US farm price of wheat is meanwhile hovering around US$9/bushel (just over US$330/ tonne) compared with the past season’s US$7.63 and the previous

year’s US$5.05. USDA and IGC supply/demand calculations also remind markets that 2022/23 global ending stocks will shrink from already lower than usual levels – in terms of both absolute numbers and stock/use ratios. The persistent strength of forward CBOT prices might also reflect some longer-term uncertainties overhanging 2023/24 supply. Apart from worries that Ukraine’s 2023 crop will drop further, Russian farmers are reported to running short of spare parts for farm machinery amid Western sanctions. This year’s global droughts and heatwaves have also been a reminder that weather risk linked to climate change could play a larger part in the seasons ahead. However, while US forward markets point to firm wheat prices all next

year, the European milling wheat futures benchmark in Paris at least continues to promise cheaper grain ahead, September 2023 suggesting prices 7.6 percent cheaper than current months.

- Some wheat stock building might be expected by importers large and small – just in case the Ukrainian situation worsens again or more weather issues emerge for remaining 2022/23 global harvests. Although most is now gathered in the main Northern Hemisphere wheat belt, prices could be influenced by any problems with the later-harvested maize crop.

- Another bearish piece of news was largest wheat producer China announcing a slightly larger crop, claiming - despite some weather challenges – its best quality in years. That could affect Chinese imports, averaging almost 10 million tonnes in recent years, mainly better grade wheat to blend up quality for food use. Wheat may also come under pressure from further strengthening in the US dollar, the main currency of trade, and from fears of recession curbing global consumption.

Big Lat-Am crop may calm volatile maize

Steep fluctuations in the international maize market in late summer testify to the colliding mix of factors affecting its supply outlook. On the one hand, the predominant US crop seems to be shrinking. So does Europe’s harvest estimate, while Ukraine’s is already sharply down.

Against that, Latin America looks in for a year of record production. The contrast is already showing in exportsUkraine’s fell 60 percent in August compared with same month last year but Brazil’s soared 74 percent to some 7.55m tonnes.

Breaking down the recent crop figures, the USDA recently cut is estimates for US harvested acreage, from 81.8 to 80.8m acres (last year 85.4m) as well as average yield, down from 175.4 to 171.9 bu/acre versus last year’s 177. Quite a surprise to the markets, it forced the nearby price on US futures markets up from the US$6.60’s to a high of US$7.25/bu at one point.

Although USDA also reduced its forecasts for US exports, domestic feed and ethanol consumption, it still results in its carryover stock shrinking from 35.3m to under 30m tonnes – it’s lowest for some years and compared with the recent peak 56.4m in season 2018/19.

The world carryover stock forecast for maize is relatively less tight (a mere two-year low of 301m tonnes) thanks to the Latin American bounty.

Top producer Brazil is currently expected to produce a record 126m tonnes – 10m more than last season and almost 40m more than its weatheraffected 2020/21 harvest.

Its exports may well increase more than the 13.5m tonnes expected by USDA (at some 46.5m tonnes). But it should be remembered that Brazil’s next crop hasn’t yet been

sown, making this data a bit speculative.

Provided current dryness issues in some areas don’t get worse, neighbouring Argentina also hopes for a bumper 55m tonne harvest (average 52m the past four years), which should help feed a second year of larger than usual exports (41m versus an average 36m tonnes).

Europe has been a bullish factor in the maize market as the past summer’s droughts slash its crop forecast from an earlier 68m tonnes to just 56.2m (last year 71m tonnes). That would be its worst performance in several years, expected to require imports of at least 20m tonnes for a second year running as well as slashing the bloc’s exports to non-EU countries from the past season’s 6m tonnes.

Last year’s fourth-largest exporter, Ukraine, remains a guessing game. Its current crop estimate has edged up a little but at some 31.5m tonnes, remains 25% down on last year’s total. The more important figure influencing markets has been export potential.

At one point, USDA saw that halving to 13m tonnes, its worst performance for many years, thanks to the blockading of its ports but recently that has improved to 15m. Ukraine’s 20-23 crop potential remains even harder to quantify amid loss of territory and multiple factors – input costs, labour shortages, transport difficulties and the hostilities themselves – all affecting next spring’s sowing plans and incentives. A fall of 20 or 40 percent in planted acreage? Less fertiliser use? We have to wait and see.

The blocked old-crop maize (6-12m tonnes?) will possibly supplement smaller next season’s export availability but uncertainty over shipping conditions keeps this factor fluid and potentially bullish for prices.

Other maize factors

- The price of crude oil, recently dropped to pre-Ukraineinvasion levels, threatening to undermine confidence in a bioethanol sector - home for over 40 percent of US domestic maize consumption. Recent weekly US ethanol output was the lowest since April. However, as we go to press, crude has begun to firm again as the OPEC-plus group of producers moves to cut output.

- China’s covid lockdowns and accompanying global recession fears may affect consumption of meat, suppressing demand for corn, the top animal feed component.

- CBOT nearby futures were recently around US$6.80-90/ bushel, versus US$5 this time last year. That may encourage US farmers to expand plantings next spring, recent polls suggest.

- Brazil recently moved into first place on the EU maize supplier list, replacing lost Ukrainian supplies at a time when Europe’s unexpectedly small crop has resulted in it overtaking China as the world’s largest corn customer. Brazil may also export more of its looming surplus to China under a new trade protocol between the two countries.

- Forward futures suggest consumers may have to wait until the next US crop arrives in September 2023 when prices are quoted about eight percent under current levels, around the midUS$6.30’s/bushel compared with corn’s long-term range of recent years around US$3 – US$4. The USDA’s seasonal average price for 2022/23 is US$6.75 versus the past season’s US$5.95 and 2020/21’s US$4.53.

Soya still expensive

Soya meal, like the grains, is hanging onto higher than usual

prices, despite predictions of record global production and rising stocks. The US crop has had some weather stress resulting in USDA lowering its yield projection and production itself from 123m to 117.4m tonnes.

While US exports are still running somewhat under par, its seasonal ending stocks (next September) are still seen sliding by another 1.1m tonnes to just 5.4m. If it comes to pass, a major offset will be Brazil’s expected record soya crop.

Like maize, this has yet to be sown and grown but farmers are expected to expand acreage in response to higher prices and on current yield projections, could reap as much as 154m tonnes according to some local observers, versus last year’s 127m, easily setting a new record high.

Argentina is also expected to raise output from 44m to 51m tonnes, Paraguay from 4.2m to 10m, all promising a very abundant supply and fierce competition for US exporters. Adding to soya supply pressures, Argentina’s government recently offered exporters a temporary favourable dollar/peso exchange rate that US suppliers feared would prompt significant importer switching to the Latin American origin. On the supportive side, US crush has been strong.

Among the major users, USDA expects Chinese crush to soar from 87m to 96m tonnes as the country’s pig herd recovers from African Swine Fever and its economy bounces back from covid lockdowns. Like the Lat-Am crop numbers, that too has yet to be proved. The same applies to smaller/medium-sized developing country’s mainly import-based demand.

While soya is cheaper than its early/mid-summer peaks, it remains a lot more expensive than usual. The Rotterdam benchmark for soya meal has been trading well into the upper US$550’s/tonne compared with US$350 for recent years – and the dollar is running at 20-year highs against many countries’ currencies, further raising costs.

Chicago soya futures suggest bean & meal costs will be just as high in a year’s time as now, declining only modestly towards 2024. However, if global economic recession does linger – and global stocks increase as expected - these high prices may dent demand and, ultimately have some softening impact on cost too.

Rapeseed supply finally improving

Rapeseed/canola meal costs have dipped sharply in recent months as traders contemplated higher production forecasts and a weaker trend in some rival oilseeds. The Winnipeg futures nearby position for whole rapeseed went way below the psychologically key level of C$8/bushel for the first time since mid-2021 while Paris nearby futures traded below EUR€600/tonne (US$587.1/ tonne) to their lowest since September last year.

Canada’s latest official crop estimate of 19.5m tonnes was up almost 42 percent from last year’s drought/heat-wave-afflicted harvest. The 2021 crop estimate also went up from 12.6m to 13.76m tonnes, the combined increases resulting in a less tight seasonal ending stock forecast for 2023.

Dealers also noted good weather helping to bring in the Canadian harvest. An Australian crop forecast of 6.6m tonnes, also weighed into the mix of bearish factors, as did this year’s bigger European crop (+ almost 2m at over 19m tonnes).

Russia and Ukraine (the latter’s winter-sown rapeseed less affected by the conflict than spring-sown sunflower seed) also seem to have managed to produce more rapeseed this season than

last (a combined 7.1m tonnes versus last year’s 5.8m).

For much of the past season, rapeseed prices had averaged 47 percent higher than in 2020/21 and more than double 2019/20 levels on the European market. But as the larger supply starts to work through, there could be some softening in costs.

The world sunflowerseed crop – an important subsidiary source of oil-meal – is estimated to have dropped over 5m tonnes to some 52m this season, mainly due to the Ukrainian crop falling by some 40 percent to just 10.5m amid the conflict. Europe’s crop was trimmed by drought and heatwaves from 10.25m tonnes last year to 9.7m tonnes.

The global crop would have been even smaller without bigger Russian and Argentine harvests, +1.4m and 0.9m tonnes respectively. Also, because stocks from last year’s large harvest were bottled up in Ukraine – and provided these can get out to neighbouring countries for crushing – the overall supply of sun meal could hold up for the current season at similar levels to last year.

Overall, like the other oilmeals, sunflower will tend to follow the overall trend set by soya.

Al-Hazaa Investment Group

Personal commitment, entrepreneurial thinking and sensitivity to changing markets

In the 1940’s, Mr Sharif Hazaa, the founder of the Al-Hazaa Investment Group, started his industrial activities by establishing a flour mill in Iraq. The philosophy of the Group has always been to build strong foundations in major market fields and to focus primarily on activities that would contribute to the economy of Iraq.

As such, the Group has expanded into a number of industrial sectors, besides the food industry. In the late 1970's, Mr Jamal Hazaa, the eldest son, took over the management of the Group with the assistance of his brothers, Omar Hazaa and Khalid Hazaa.

Together, they brought Al Hazaa Group to great achievements of success and became the leading industrial business in multiple industrial sectors.

Increasing volatility & constant change

The success of the Group can be attributed to a number of factors; among which are personal commitment, entrepreneurial thinking and sensitivity to changing markets. The success of their products and services are a result of their quality, consistency and innovation. As a result of the management strategies, the Group has been able to strongly position itself in a number of Arab Countries across the Middle East.

The Group has further established solid relationships and close cooperation with leading industrial companies worldwide to keep up with developing technologies, which allow the distinction of their products and services. The Group has evolved over the last decades and has consolidated its presence and reputation in the Region as one of the most dynamic and successful family groups.

Today, in markets characterised by increasing volatility and constant change, the Al-Hazaa Group looks with confidence into the future based on strong foundations, which reflect its heritage and culture.

Al-Hazaa Investment Group have dedicated themselves through their latest investment to taking a strong action to enhance food security and safety of the local community by opening a new state of the art flour mill in Aqaba - the Red Sea Flour Mill, also known as Ayla Mill.

Now grains arriving at the port will be milled and distributed in the city itself without further transportation strains. Since Aqaba is such a strategic location for both import and export, about 50 percent of the new mill’s flour production will be distributed to the local markets while the other 50 percent will be used as export goods shipped to Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and other countries.

Very operator friendly

The Red Sea Flour Mill has a storage for 8000 tons of wheat and it’s able to grind 240 tons a day on the mill and can split this into

several finished products and if you deal with such quantities each increase in performance goes a long way.

This performance enables the mill to produce a low ash flour to high ash flours as flour zero to flour three and semolina, as well as bran and pollard, which goes to human consumption and animal nutrition.

At the Red Sea Flour Mill, they work with the latest technologies such as the Mercury operating system, the Diorit roller mill (MDDY) with the latest machine control, and the Norit purifier. The Diorit does have the integrated displays which gives you detailed information about key parameters which makes it very operator friendly.

With individual dashboards displaying the most important KPIs Bühler Insights is helping to optimise the plant’s efficiency, reducing the energy consumption, maintenance time, and wastage as well.

Bühler Insights brings the mill to the mill operator’s pocket, it allows the customer to trace errors and monitor the mill remotely. Al-Hazaa Group joined Bühler on its way to the smart mill by adopting this revolutionary new technology.

The largest grain storage facility

Al-Hazaa Investment Group also owns the largest grain storage facility in Jordan’s private sector. Because of this big storage capacity, they are less affected by global disturbances and economic changes.

Al-Hazaa Investment Group is committed to contributing to the wellbeing of the people. Among their core values, is a need to take on social responsibility and to act as leaders and models.

To do that, they have taken the important step to open their new state of the art mill in Aqaba, and in doing so, are setting new regional standards in many ways.

Case Study

Christy Turner & I’Anson

I’Anson are a family owned and managed company that manufacture and supply premium animal feed to agricultural, equine and pet food industries. Its factory in Masham, North Yorkshire, is the centre of the operation and between Masham and the Melmerby Distribution Centre, employ more than 90 people.

By just looking at the latest I’Anson news, you will see that long term employees are regularly celebrated - and it is this strong family ethos, coupled with an impressive embracement of new processes and technologies, that has been the mainstay of the company.

Focussing on high quality products and customer service, I’Anson remain market specialists in manufacture and supply of feed for beef cattle, dairy cattle, sheep, horse, and pets: everything from chickens to chinchillas!

Let’s turn the clocks back 122 years, right back to the start of the I’Anson story. In the small market town of Masham in North Yorkshire, Great-grandfather of the current directors, Christopher I’Anson, acquires a small agricultural firm and a banking agency.

This banking agency eventually became the Midland Bank (now HSBC) Christopher welcomed his first farm and bank customers on July 15, 1900. Thus, Christopher became the first Midland Bank manager in the town.

Today, I’Anson the business thrives with annual revenues in excess of UK£45million/US$58.6million, supplying farming and equine customers across the UK and in more than 40 countries worldwide.

A long & successful relationship

The Christy Turner and I’Anson relationship dates back to the 1970’s when the company’s late Chairman, Ron Gosling, started what was to become a long and successful relationship. The first Turner 460 flaking mill was delivered in 1975, adding subsequent 460 915 mills in 1979 and into the eighties. I’Anson now boast eight Christy Turner flaking mills. There’s also a Christy Turner X Mill, purchased back in the seventies and it is in use, every single day.

Fourth generation MD, Chris I’Anson, joined the company in 1978 and became MDin 1993. The Directors have always taken a particular interest in research and development in

A relationship that spans over 45 years with flaking mills that are just as robust

new products and processes, and this has clearly maintained I’Anson’s seat in the agricultural feed market. One such development that that the company is rightly proud of is the micronising process that I’Anson deploy in the feed manufacturing process.

Shorter times than traditional heating methods

Micronising, a process that I’Anson uses to create feed products in conjunction with its flaking mills, is a cooking process that uses infrared rays to cook cereals or pulses at lower temperatures and for shorter times than traditional heating methods. Gas burners are used to generate the infrared rays that are absorbed by the products.

The raw materials are passed under the burners on variable speed belts to achieve the desired level of being cooked. The product is then passed through a flaking mill, (Christy Turner 460 flaking mills) to create flakes. These flakes can be used in whole or ground form, depending on purpose.

The benefit of micronised products over traditional feed manufacturing methods includes improved nutritional value, increased available energy, and streamlined digestibility.

The end product of micronised flakes provides an excellent source of highly available nutrients that are visually appealing

Philip Stockill and Sarah Richardson, Technical Sales Manager and Managing Director respectively for l'Anson Brothers.

as well. A subsidiary of I’Anson, Masham Micronised Feeds, or MMF, have established themselves in over 40 years as a leading manufacturer and supplier of micronised feed products across Europe.

The highest quality spun cast chilled iron

The seven workhorse Christy Turner 460 Flaking Mills have been in constant use and very much a part of I’Anson’s premium product manufacturing process. Here, the flaking mills are deployed in the rolling of micronised grains of wheat, barley, maize, oats and other grains and seeds.

Some of the benefits of these reliable mills include a heavy-duty cast-iron chassis, the mill retains the stability and accuracy of the roll gap and imposed pressure. The castings absorb the high pressures and shock loads to give a long and trouble free life. High precision, rigid bearing arrangement enables the production of very fine flakes, essential for the I’Anson micronising process.

Chilled iron rolls manufactured from the highest quality spun cast chilled iron, allow a considerable number of regrinds. Chris uses Christy Turner’s Spares and Servicing facility to service their flaking mills and regrind the rolls and make sure that production is seamless with no down time.

A relationship that spans over 45 years and flaking mills that are just as robust as these are both rare finds in today’s industries. The two companies continue to develop, but many of the old family values remain and are a testament to both company’s success.

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9-11

AFIA Equipment Manufacturers Conference 2022 St. Petersburg, Florida, USA www.afia.org

9-11

Ildex Indonesia 2022 Jakarta, Indonesia www.ildex-indonesia.com

15-18

EuroTier 2022 Hannover, Germany www.eurotier.com

20-22

VIV MEA Abu Dhabi www.vivmea.nl

Set to take place from November 20 – 22 2023, the 4th edition of VIV MEA, the international trade show from feed to food for the production & processing of poultry meat, eggs, fish and dairy in the Middle East and Africa is looking forward to welcoming approximately 8000 visitors from around the world. A business-driven event, with a clear focus on innovation, technology and scientific research, VIV MEA is by far the top show for the animal husbandry industry in the whole region since 2016 when the first edition took place. VIV MEA brings together the livestock world with 500+ global and regional suppliers from the entire supply chain of all animal species production. Alongside the VIV MEA trade show, which will be wholly focused on animal based protein as usual, the organiser VNU Europe will separately bring extra contents and products from suppliers of controlled environments and precision agriculture as well as innovations and technologies for smart food production, covering topics such as: plant based protein production; improved nutritional value and health; organic food concepts; increase yields programs; control pests solutions; water saving systems; energy use management; and more.

“At VIV MEA, we strive to bring delegations and industry leaders from all over the world to share their global perspective on a variety of agri-food topics. In fact, we are looking forward to welcoming approximately 8000 visitors from around the world, and especially from the GCC,” affirms Renate Wiendels, Senior Project Manager, VIV worldwide.

VNU Europe invites all professionals in the field to save the date for an event of business networking, knowledge and futurefocused discussions shaping the next standards in agri-food production.

2023 January 19-20

IFF Insect Revolution Conference Online www.iff-braunschweig.de 22-27

IPPE 2022 Atlanta, USA www.ippexpo.org

26-27

Paris Grain Day Paris, France www.argusmedia.com

2023 February

25-28

GEAPS Exchange 2023 Kansas City, Missouri, USA www.geapsexchange.com 25-28

GEAPS Exchange 2022 Kansas City, Missouri, USA https://geapsexchange.com 2023 March

7-9

AFIA Purchasing and Ingredient Suppliers Conference 2023 Orlando, Florida, USA https://www.afia.org 8-10

VIV Asia 2023 Bangkok, Thailand https://vivasia.nl 10-12

IDMA and Victam EMEA 2022 Istanbul, Turkey https://idmavictam.com 29-30

SOLIDS Dortmund 2023 Dortmund, Germany https://www.solids-dortmund.de

2023 April

17-21

127th Annual IAOM Conference and Expo Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA www.iaom.org/annualmeeting 2023 May

1-5

Agrishow 2023 São Paulo, Brazil www.agrishow.com.br 2-6

126th Annual IAOM Conference and Expo Richmond, Virginia, USA https://www.iaom.org/event/126th-annualiaom-conference-expo/ 21-25

Alltech ONE conference Lexinton, Kentucky, USA https://one.alltech.com 25-27

Agritechnica Asia 2022 Bangkok, Thailand www.agritechnica-asia.com 2023 June

13-14

Cereals 2023 Thoresby Estate, Nottinghamshire, UK www.cerealsevent.co.uk

internationalmilling.com

INDUSTRY EVENTS

Poultry Africa 2022

Highlighting feed cost challenges & market opportunities

Nearly 1600 professional delegates from 53 countries visited the 123 exhibiting companies at the 3rd edition of Poultry Africa, took place from October 5-6 in Kigali, Rwanda.

Poultry Africa 2022, the most complete trade show for poultry professionals in Sub-Saharan Africa powered by VIV worldwide, kicked off with an exciting program and 22 Speakers at the Leadership Conference on October 4th.

This high-level conference welcomed Industry Leaders and top sector players from many countries, among which Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, to name a few. The attendees experienced a full day of inspiring and informative presentations on African industry updates, sustainable poultry production, opportunities and challenges for the egg industry in Africa, innovative feeding solutions, and biosecurity for the African market.

The poultry broiler and layer industry of the Sub-Saharan Africa met in Kigali for a stimulating business gathering with global suppliers and international speakers of the feed to food poultry supply chain.

The Poultry Africa two-day Expo followed on October 5-6 presenting 123 exhibitors from 30 countries led by The Netherlands, Turkey, Belgium, France, Rwanda, India, Germany, Italy, United States, and Kenya.

A wide range of products covering the full supply chain were on display, among which farm production equipment, animal health ingredients and additives, feed production equipment, data management solutions, breeding and hatching, farming, slaughtering, processing and egg handling systems.

Major visiting profiles

Around 1600 professional visitors took advantage of this third edition of the event. The major visiting professional profiles includes poultry farmers, veterinarians, nutritionists, breeders, feed ingredient & additive manufacturers, feed milling and processing operators, poultry product and farm equipment distributors, packaging equipment manufacturers, as well as scientists, media and institutions.

Rwanda counted for 55 percent of the total visitors, while the remaining 45 percent came from 53 countries, with the African continent participation head by Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Cameroon, Burundi, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. This marked an increase in the international audience, compared to the last edition.

The outstanding quality of the visitors gave great satisfaction to the exhibitors. With 16 percent of the delegates being farm owners and 27 percent belonging to the companies' top management, the decision-making level of the regional industry was indeed well represented at the show.

“Rwanda's poultry industry is transforming from subsistence to a more knowledge intensive and market-oriented poultry farming,” comments the Honourable Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Dr Gerardine Mukeshimana while officially opening the event.

According to the Ministry, poultry is one of the avenues to contribute to Rwanda national food and nutrition security, income generation and job creation. 'With traditional feed prices on the rise, more research is needed to formulate alternative source of feed based on locally available and easily accessible components,' added Dr Mukeshimana.

This overall outline of the industry in Rwanda applies to many other countries of the region as well.

Feed cost challenges & opportunities

Together with the Poultry Africa event reports, the rising feed cost challenges also made the headlines in the region. Most of the countries both in the East and the West of Africa are dealing with this threat that caused drastic drops in profit margins in the past months, especially until Q2 of 2022.

Tackling this pressing issue, at Poultry Africa the attendees could learn practical solutions on how to implement nutritional strategies to reduce feed costs, as well as best practices on poultry feed cost management.

At the same time, the event gave a broader perspective on the topic, by bringing top-notch market data to the audience. In his outlook of the African Poultry Industry, Dr Nan-Dirk Mulder, Global Specialist Animal Protein for Rabobank explained that feed costs increase is one of the key themes to be monitored in the region development.

“There is a need to upgrade the local feed supply chain' he explains. “South Africa, Egypt and Kenya are still leading the African feed production, but the Sub-Saharan feed industry is growing fast especially in poultry feed,” offering investment opportunities in the region.

Next to the several challenges that the continent presents, the African economy also offers huge opportunities with its GDP growing above global average.

“The Poultry business is a growing agricultural sub-sector in Africa, and it is expected to continue to grow as demand for meat and eggs continue to grow due to the demographic pressure, rising incomes and urbanisation,” states Dr Mukeshimana, speaking during the show opening.

“Poultry Africa 2022 had the honour to provide once again a productive international environment for the sector to network and discuss the opportunities that the African markets have to offer in the long term.

At the same time, the event offered a unique business-oriented platform for the development of the poultry & egg industry in the region,” says Mrs Nienke van Soest, VNU Europe Project Manager Poultry Africa.

Poultry Africa comes back in 2024!

'The whole team will be back supporting the industry again to expand business in Africa from October 2 – 3, 2024. The fourth edition of Poultry Africa will be held in Kigali, Rwanda, once more at the KCC venue,' comments Zhenja Antochin, VNU Europe Senior Project Manager.

INDUSTRY EVENTS

Mill Tech Istanbul 2022

The event that became the lifeline for exports

Described as being an event in Istanbul that brought together the world's leading milling machinery companies, many milliondollar business agreements were signed at this year’s Mill Tech Istanbul.

Held in Istanbul and is the world's largest event in its field, drew a total of 16,103 industry professionals, 4186 of whom were international citizens. The trade volume generated by the event, which showcased everything related to the sector, will make a significant contribution to global brands’ exports for one year.

Mill Tech Istanbul was organised for the most significant brands in the global milling industry and to host new business agreements, with millions of US dollars in deals being made. In particular, Mill Tech Istanbul contributed significantly to the exports of the participating businesses and became the lifeblood of the nation's economy.

CNR Holding and the Association of Milling and Sector Machinery Manufacturers (DESMÜD) organized the Mill Tech-Mill Machinery Technologies and Components Exhibition, featuring new industry technologies and applications, with the Turkish milling machinery industry expanded its global trade network.

Quality participants met with qualified buyers

Mill Tech Istanbul attracted a lot of interest from both domestic and international manufacturers and brought qualified participants and qualified buyers together, significantly boosting trade in the industry.

Professional buyers from Europe, Africa, the Turkic Republics, the Middle East, and Far Eastern nations attended Mill Tech Istanbul to see the products of more than 120 top brands. Longterm trade agreements resulted from B2B bilateral meetings between exhibitors and attendees.

The Ugandan Minister of State, Mr Hilary Onek, and the Minister of Industry and Technology, Mustafa Varank, launched Mill Tech Istanbul. Mr Varank stated that, as Minister of Industry and Technology, he paid special attention to sectoral fairs, saying, "This fair is an important showcase where our business world exhibits its innovative products.

"This and similar fairs demonstrate the power of our private sector. This is the largest fair of its kind in the world. We bring together domestic producers and international buyers for the industry's success at this fair."

Ugandan State Minister Hilary Onek stated that the country produces high-quality grains and pulses but that "we do not have the machinery to process these grains."

“This is precisely why we came to Mill Tech Istanbul. We met with companies to discuss installing milling machinery equipment in our country, and the results were very positive.

“I congratulate Turkish industrialists on their success in this country. We can spread the Turkish technology we learned at Mill Tech Istanbul throughout the African continent."

Your industry training platform

INDUSTRY EVENTS

PPMA TOTAL 2022

Successful packaging show brings manufacturers, suppliers & customers together

by Andrew Wilkinson, Milling and Grain magazine, UK

What is the British city of Birmingham famous for, when you hear the name, what first comes to mind? Personally, when I think of Birmingham I think of canals - did you know for example that there are more miles of man-made waterways in Birmingham than there are in Venice?

In addition to this, Birmingham is also steeped in musical history – with bands like Ozzy Osborne’s Black Sabbath, Duran Duran and ELO hailing from the city. Besides all of this, it is the city’s manufacturing industry that gives it much of its identity –with food brands such as Cadbury chocolate serving only to forge this reputation.

With this in mind, it was rather fitting then, that the PPMA Total packaging show should take place in the UK’s second city this year - given the abundance of famous food brands, including Typhoo tea, Bird's Custard, Bournville cocoa and ketchup nemesis HP Sauce, that originated in the city.

A resounding success

Since the completion of the show, which ran from September 27 - 29, at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC), visitors and exhibitors have hailed it as a resounding success.

To date, the organisers have received very positive feedback, with the processing and packaging industry calling the exhibition “a great networking event that has everything you need in the processing and packaging arena.”

This year’s show hosted over 350 stands representing 2000 brands and featuring a significant number of new product launches and ‘first showings’ of the latest technologies, automated solutions, robotics and vision systems.

A winning combination of expert exhibitors, representing the full production line, carried out live demonstrations of machines for high-calibre visitors, which created a fantastic atmosphere filled with invaluable opportunities.

“It was good to see what other technologies are out in the market and what opportunities there are,” comments Nicole Carr, Project Manager for PepsiCo.

Highly sought after

The building and maintaining of relationships with colleagues and suppliers was one of the key reasons for attending this event. It was fortunate then that opportunities to do so continued on into the evenings after the show.

These opportunities included at the PPMA Gala Dinner, which was highlighted by a performance from stand-up comedian Jason Manford in front of hundreds of exhibitors and VIPs.

The highly sought after PPMA Industry Awards were also handed out during the course of the exhibition to winners including Markem-Imaje, Fortress Technology, Pace Machine Handling, Crest Solutions, and Epson (UK).

The winners were praised by judges for their creativity, smart

technologies and innovative solutions, focused on increasing productivity and efficiency, reducing costs as well as delivering excellence in customer service.

Show visitors were also rewarded with a three-day seminar programme of informative and educational presentations and opinion-led industry insights. Centred around the theme ‘The Future Of…’ the seminars were compiled specifically to address the many opportunities and challenges facing UK industry. Seminars also emphasised the efforts that are being made to make the manufacturing industry more sustainable and environmentally friendly as we work towards Net Zero.

An absolutely fantastic opportunity

Summing up the benefits of this year’s show and events, Stuart Colton from Omron describes it as, “An absolutely fantastic opportunity to engage with the most important market sector in the UK.”

Richard Little, PPMA Show Director also adds, “It is both overwhelming and gratifying to receive such positive and encouraging feedback from visitors and exhibitors alike.

“We are delighted that once again, in its 34th year, PPMA Total Show has delivered an event that reaches into the very heart of our industry, addressing the needs of our members as well as delivering on the aspirations and expectations of our visitors.”

In 2023 the PPMA Show is set to return to the NEC and will run from 26-28th September. Potential exhibitors interested in booking a stand and would-be visitors can register their interest at https://mymag.info/e/1679

“A great networking event that has everything you need in the processing and packaging arena.”

INDUSTRY EVENTS

JTIC 2022

by Antoine Tanguy, Milling and Grain magazine, France

On 12 & 13 October 2022, the 72nd edition of the JTIC (Journées Techniques des Industries Céréalières - Grain Technical Days) took place in Dijon. The two-day show allowed us a fantastic opportunity to meet key actors of the milling and cereals industries including suppliers, clients, and futures collaborators.

Every year, the show moves from city to city in France to show the diversity of the agricultural sector in the region. The show is organized by AEMIC, the association of alumni of the National Milling School, and is a major event for the French industry with 6 conferences and 70 exhibitors. The event consisted of several conferences on the milling industry and an exhibition floor, which gathered over 70 booths including major companies such as Brabender, FOSS France, OMAS, and BÖCKER FRANCE.

Day 1: Conferences, discussions and so on…

There was full attendance for the first conference of the day, ‘The Bakery industry and new consumers: recent developments in bread-making processes.’ One conference included a talk by Gilles Renaud, regarding ‘The milling industry faced with the new demands of the bakery industry: What technical developments should accompany it?’ The talk stated “There is not only the evolution of wheat and its hardness to be taken into account in technical developments. There is also the evolution of consumer expectations and those of producers.”

Another conference looked at “Main trends in the evolution of wheat over the last decade”, delivered by François Allorant (Professor at ENSMIC). In his talk, he stated “For moisture, the trend is downwards but this depends largely on the harvest. The protein content is good and stable around 11.5%. The specific weight also depends on the harvest conditions. “The hardness criterion is important. There has been a trend from medium soft to medium hard for the last 15 to 20 years. For the miller, it is necessary to reflect and to evolve the milling diagrams to adapt.”

The CEO of Omas, Luigi Nalon, also spoke on 'Major technical innovations in milling diagrams and industrial equipment'. This was presented by Flexymill with Leonardo (Mill) and Dante (DST) and the impact of technical innovation for millers.

Day 2: Second round of conferences and exhibitions

The second day was a full house, and included a round table conference, titled ‘From Seeds to Bread’, which included speakers Laurent Palau (SAS PENTAGRAME), Didier Geffard (RAGT), Jean-François Colomes (Val de Gascogne), Antoine Bernabe (Miller and Industrial Director of Flours from Toulouse), and Louis Tortochot (Bread for Tomorrow).

The exhibition floor included Brabender, a leader in rheology

and viscometry for flours and grains. BraBender has been building robust, accurate and innovative tools since the 1920s. As a leading supplier, BraBender develops, produces, and distributes instruments and equipment for testing material quality and physical properties in all areas of research, development, and production, worldwide.

Development and production are closely linked at BraBender. It is a family-owned group of companies that guarantees quality "Made in Germany". Research, development, and production are carried out exclusively in Germany in Duisburg. Customers have access to an application technology laboratory where they can also test the devices themselves. In France, BraBender has its own dedicated SaV and markets its tools via Cerealex.

Also present were FOSS France who offers innovative analytical solutions to control agricultural production and to optimize the profitability of your company. The technologies they produce are used to meet requirements such as the INFRATEC product range, EYEFOSS image analysis, calibration techniques, and networking solutions.

OMAS presented their new technologies, including DST, their dry scrubbing technology to remove the waterproof cellulose layer from the wheat fruit to improve wheat conditioning and reduce the water absorption time, to reach a unique degree of purification of the raw material. They also presented their Flexy mill, technology that involves adapting the speed of each roll to the hardness of the wheat.

BÖCKER FRANCE attended the exhibition hall, a company specialized in selecting and distributing innovative highperformance ingredients and solutions, created from natural ingredients, for the food industry. The company is involved in the creation and development of tailor-made solutions, to support our clients’ customization projects.

Overall, the event was of great success, with fantastic attendance, interesting speakers, and many exhibitors.

The technical days of milling and grain industry is back in France, with companies around the world taking part

What is The Market Place

The Market Place is a collaboration between Milling and Grain magazine and our sister titles, The International Milling Directory and The Global Miller.

The

Amino acids

Evonik Nutrition & Care GmbH +49 618 1596785 www.evonik.com/animal-nutrition PROFILE: mymag.info/e/598 Bagging

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

FAWEMA +49 2263 716-0 www.fawema.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1577

Brock +1 866 658 4191

www.brockgrain.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/587

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Ozpolat Makina Gida +90 342 337 1217 www.ozpolatmakina.com.tr PROFILE: mymag.info/e/635

Özpolat Grain Processing Technologies, are proud to present you with their 55 years of experience in milling machinery technologies and our products with the latest technology.

As of today, more than 300 reference factories are operating successfully in 40 countries including Germany, Austria, Brazil, France, South Korea, Iraq, Egypt and Russia.

Özpolat’s areas of expertise are: Wheat Mills, Corn Mills, Feed Mills, Lentil Plants, Bulgur Plants, Rice Plants and Grain Cleaning, Storage Machines. They design all their machines with featured software and first produce them virtually. They detect parts that will run all their products for 10, 20, 30, 40 years and that may become tired or lose their functionality. According to the results of their tests, they redesign their machines and start production only after they are convinced that they will produce the perfect machines. This is how Özpolat produce the longest-lasting and permanent machines in our industry.

See full profile at: mymag.info/e/635

Silo Construction & Engineering +32 51723128

www.sce.be

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1085

Bruks Siwertell AB +46 4285880

www.bruks-siwertell.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/931

Symaga +34 926640475 www.symaga.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/654

AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Vibrafloor +33 3 85 44 06 78 www.vibrafloor.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/664

vibronet-Gräf GmbH & Co.KG +49 6441 62031 www.vibronet.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/663

Colour sorters

Bühler A G +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588 Cimbria

Satake +81 82 420 8560 www.satake-group.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/645

Inteqnion +31 543 49 44 66

www.inteqnion.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/615

Van Aarsen International +31 475 579 444 www.aarsen.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/662

Van Aarsen has become a worldwide “household name” in machines, and turn key projects for the animal feed technology, both for commercial feed producers and for vertically-integrated businesses. Quality is of the utmost importance for both segments sectors of the industry and innovations in feed production are therefore of great interest. Thanks to their extensive experience, our engineers and technicians are always able to offer tailor-made suitable solutions.

See full profile at: mymag.info/e/662

Interview: Roger Ubags, Area Manager, Van Aarsen, The Netherlands

Coolers

Bühler AG

+41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Consergra s.l +34 938 772207 www.consergra.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1343

FrigorTec GmbH +49 7520 91482-0 www.frigortec.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/604

FAMSUN

85828888 www.famsungroup.com

Tapco Inc +1 314 739 9191 www.tapcoinc.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/658

Yemtar Feed Mill Machines +90 266 733 8550 www.yemtar.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/669

Elevator & conveyor components

4B Braime +44 113 246 1800 www.go4b.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/418

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Henry Simon +44 0161 804 2800 www.henrysimonmilling.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/608

Tapco Inc +1 314 739 9191 www.tapcoinc.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/658

Yemtar Feed Mill Machines +90 266 733 8550 www.yemtar.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/669

Van Aarsen International +31 475 579 444 www.aarsen.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/662

Enzymes

ERKAYA +90 312 395 2986 www.erkayagida.com.tr PROFILE: mymag.info/e/596

PLP

+39 05 23 89 16 29 www.plp-systems.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/700

DSM +44 1452 306129 www.dsm.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1584

Evonik Nutrition & Care GmbH +49 618 1596785 www.evonik.com/animal-nutrition PROFILE: mymag.info/e/598

Romer Labs Division Holding GmbH +43 2782 803 0 www.romerlabs.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1098

The Anderson Inc +1 419-897-6758 www.andersonsgrain.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1144

Feed milling

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588 milltech +90 332 5021300 www.milltech.com.tr PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1585

Dinnissen BV +31 77 467 3555 www.dinnissen.nl PROFILE: mymag.info/e/595

FAMSUN +86 85828888 www.famsungroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/600

Ottevanger Milling Engineers +31 79 593 22 21 www.ottevanger.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/737

PLP +39 05 23 89 16 29 www.plp-systems.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/700

Extruders

Almex

+31 575 572666 www.almex.nl PROFILE: mymag.info/e/570

Andritz +45 72 160300 www.andritz.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/574

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Wenger Manufacturing +1 785-284-2133 www.wenger.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/666

Yemmak +90 266 7338363 www.yemmak.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/668

Yemtar Feed Mill Machines +90 266 733 8550 www.yemtar.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/669

Feed nutrition

Adisseo + 33 1 46 74 70 00 www.adisseo.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1583

Anpario +44 1909 537 380 www.anpario.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1097

Sangati Berga +55 11 2663 9990 www.sangatiberga.com.br PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1145

Van Aarsen International +31 475 579 444 www.aarsen.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/662

VAV Conveyor Components & Solutions +31 7140 23701 www.vav-nl.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1042

vibronet-Gräf GmbH & Co.KG +49 6441 62031 www.vibronet.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/663

Yemmak +90 266 7338363 www.yemmak.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/668

Zheng Chang +86 2164184200 www.zhengchang.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/672

Golden Grain Group +86 371 68631308 www.g-grain.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1031

Feed Mill Automation

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Van Aarsen International +31 475 579 444 www.aarsen.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/662

Flour milling

milltech

+90 332 5021300 www.milltech.com.tr

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1585

Grain handling systems

Behlen +1 402 564 3111 www.behlengrainsystems.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/583

Behlen Mfg. Co. is a leading international manufacturer of grain storage systems. These structures are used worldwide in a multitude of locations storing a wide variety of grain. Behlen bins range in size from a few thousand bushels to over 1,500,00 bushels. The Behlen grain storage buildings can be custom designed for many applications. The entire line of Behlen equipment can be manufactured to handle high winds, seismic conditions, as well as high filling and unloading rates.

See full profile at: PROFILE: mymag.info/e/583

Brock +1 866 658 4191 www.brockgrain.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/587

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Cimbria A/S +45 96 17 90 00 www.cimbria.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/592

Ozpolat Makina Gida +90 342 337 1217 www.ozpolatmakina.com.tr PROFILE: mymag.info/e/635

Sangati Berga +55 11 2663 9990 www.sangatiberga.com.br PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1145

Sukup Europe +45 75685311 www.sukup-eu.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/652

Symaga +34 91 726 43 04 www.symaga.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/654

Tapco Inc +1 314 739 9191 www.tapcoinc.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/658

The Essmueller +1 800 325 7175 www.essmueller.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/597

Yemtar Feed Mill Machines +90 266 733 8550 www.yemtar.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/669

Zaccaria +55 19 3404 5700 www.zaccaria.com.br PROFILE: mymag.info/e/671

Golden Grain Group +86 371 68631308 www.g-grain.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1031

Hammermills

Alapala +90 212 465 60 40 www.alapala.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/568

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Dinnissen BV +31 77 467 3555 www.dinnissen.nl PROFILE: mymag.info/e/595

Ottevanger Milling Engineers +31 79 593 22 21

www.ottevanger.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/737

Selis +90 222 236 12 33 www.selis.com.tr PROFILE: mymag.info/e/649

Van Aarsen International +31 475 579 444 www.aarsen.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/662

Yemmak +90 266 7338363 www.yemmak.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/668

Yemtar Feed Mill Machines +90 266 733 8550 www.yemtar.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/669

Zheng Chang +86 2164184200 www.zhengchang.com/eng PROFILE: mymag.info/e/672

Laboratory equipment

Bastak +90 312 395 67 87 www.bastak.com.tr PROFILE: mymag.info/e/582

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

ERKAYA +90 312 395 2986 www.erkayagida.com.tr PROFILE: mymag.info/e/596

Tekpro +44 1692 403403 www.tekpro.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/660

Zaccaria +55 19 3404 5700 www.zaccaria.com.br PROFILE: mymag.info/e/671

Loading/un-loading equipment

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Dinnissen BV +31 77 467 3555 www.dinnissen.nl PROFILE: mymag.info/e/595

Neuero Industrietechnik +49 5422 95030 www.neuero.de PROFILE: mymag.info/e/627

Van Aarsen International +31 475 579 444 www.aarsen.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/662

Vigan Engineering +32 67 89 50 41 www.vigan.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/665

Mill design & installation

Alapala

+90 212 465 60 40 www.alapala.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/568

Founded in 1954 in Çorum, Turkey, Alapala is the eldest and most well-known company in Alapala Group. It has been established with the vision of leading the milling industry. We are among the top two companies of the world and moving with the strong steps to fulfil our vision.

Alapala builds and services turnkey plants of any desired capacity and is one of the top 500 exporters in Turkey. While exporting 95% of its production, has 600+ turnkey references in over 100 countries in 4 continents across globe.

Alapala continues to develop and expand via its superior technology infrastructure, perfectionist staff and management, and its quality and customeroriented approach.

See full profile at: PROFILE: mymag.info/e/568

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Henry Simon +44 0161 804 2800 www.henrysimonmilling.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/608

IMAS - Milleral +90 332 2390141 www.milleral.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/613

Ocrim +39 0372 4011 www.ocrim.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/632

Ottevanger Milling Engineers +31 79 593 22 21 www.ottevanger.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/737

Sangati Berga +55 11 2663 9990 www.sangatiberga.com.br

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1145

Satake +81 82 420 8560 www.satake-group.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/645

Selis +90 222 236 12 33 www.selis.com.tr

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/649

Silo Construction & Engineering +32 51723128 www.sce.be PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1085

Van Aarsen International +31 475 579 444 www.aarsen.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/662

Yemtar Feed Mill Machines +90 266 733 8550 www.yemtar.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/669

Hydronix +44 1483 468900 www.hydronix.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/332

Zaccaria +55 19 3404 5700 www.zaccaria.com.br

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/671

Golden Grain Group +86 371 68631308 www.g-grain.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1031

Moisture measurement

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Hydronix +44 1483 468900 www.hydronix.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/332

Vibrafloor +33 3 85 44 06 78 www.vibrafloor.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/664

vibronet-Gräf GmbH & Co.KG +49 6441 62031 www.vibronet.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/663

Mycotoxin management

Adisseo

+ 33 1 46 74 70 00 www.adisseo.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1583

Statec Binder +43 3112 38 5800

www.statec-binder.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/791

Golden Grain Group +86 371 68631308 www.g-grain.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1031

Pellet press

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

IDAH +866 39 902701 www.idah.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1568

Pelleting Technology Netherlands (PTN) +3 73 54 984 72 www.ptn.nl PROFILE: mymag.info/e/639

Van Aarsen International +31 475 579 444 www.aarsen.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/662

Yemtar Feed Mill Machines +90 266 733 8550 www.yemtar.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/669

Yemmak +90 266 7338363 www.yemmak.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/668

Packaging

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Dinnissen BV +31 77 467 3555 www.dinnissen.nl

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/595

FAWEMA +49 22 63 716 0 www.fawema.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1577

Maxtex Trading Group Co. Ltd. +66 29488281 www.maxtex.net

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1173

Statec Binder +43 3112 38 5800 www.statec-binder.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/791

Yemmak +90 266 7338363 www.yemmak.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/668

Yemtar Feed Mill Machines +90 266 733 8550 www.yemtar.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/669 Paddle mixer

IDAH +866 39 902701 www.idah.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1568

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Plant

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Sangati Berga +55 11 2663 9990 www.sangatiberga.com.br PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1145

Yemtar Feed Mill Machines +90 266 733 8550 www.yemtar.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/669

Zheng Chang +86 2164184200 www.zhengchang.com/eng PROFILE: mymag.info/e/672

Process control

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Inteqnion +31 543 49 44 66 www.inteqnion.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/615

Ottevanger Milling Engineers +31 79 593 22 21 www.ottevanger.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/737

Van Aarsen International +31 475 579 444 www.aarsen.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/662

Yemmak +90 266 7338363 www.yemmak.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/668

Rolls

Bühler AG

+41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Fundiciones Balaguer, S.A. +34 965564075 www.balaguer-rolls.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/605

Statec Binder +43 3112 38 5800 www.statec-binder.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/791

Yenar Dˆk¸m A.S. +90 332 2391073 www.yenar.com.tr

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/670

Roller mills

Alapala +90 212 465 60 40 www.alapala.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/568

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

milltech +90 332 5021300 www.milltech.com.tr PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1585

IMAS - Milleral +90 332 2390141 www.milleral.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/754

Henry Simon +44 0161 804 2800 www.henrysimonmilling.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/608

Ocrim +39 0372 4011 www.ocrim.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/632

Pelleting Technology Netherlands (PTN) +3 73 54 984 72 www.ptn.nl PROFILE: mymag.info/e/639

Pingle +86 311 88268111 www.plflourmill.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/642

Sangati Berga +55 11 2663 9990 www.sangatiberga.com.br PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1145

Selis +90 222 236 12 33 www.selis.com.tr PROFILE: mymag.info/e/649

Yemtar Feed Mill Machines

+90 266 733 8550 www.yemtar.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/669

Golden Grain Group +86 371 68631308 www.g-grain.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1031

Roll fluting

Pulverisers

IDAH +866 39 902701 www.idah.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1568

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Fundiciones Balaguer, S.A. +34 965564075 www.balaguer-rolls.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/605

+33 3 85 44 06 78 www.vibrafloor.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/664

Scalling

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Sifters

Brock +1 866 658 4191 www.brockgrain.com

PROFILE: mymag.info/e/587

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Dinnissen BV +31 77 467 3555 www.dinnissen.nl PROFILE: mymag.info/e/595

Filip GmbH +49 5241 29330 www.filip-gmbh.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1588

FILIP – there is hardly any other name so closely connected with sieve cleaners. Since 1919, the familyowned company has been developing, producing and selling sieve cleaners for all standard plansifters from manufacturers including Alapala, Bühler, Gazel, Genc, Golfetto, Great Western, MMW, Norvell, Ocrim, Omas, Ugur and Yükselis. Already in its fourth generation, FILIP is now one of the world market leaders in terms of quality for longlasting and reliable products used by demanding and satisfied customers all over the world.

The FILIP range includes sieve cleaners for plansifter sieves with and without backwire, such as those for Nova or Novapur frames.

See full profile at: PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1588 Gazel +90 364 2549630 www.gazelmakina.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/607

Behlen +1 402 564 3111 www.behlengrainsystems.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/583

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

A/S Cimbria +45 9617 9000 www.cimbria.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/592

CSI +90 322 428 3350 www.cukurovasilo.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/590

The Essmueller +1 800 325 7175 www.essmueller.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/597

MySilo +90 382 266 22 45 www.mysilo.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/622

Obial +90 382 2662120 www.obial.com.tr PROFILE: mymag.info/e/631

Ozpolat Makina Gida +90 342 337 1217 www.ozpolatmakina.com.tr PROFILE: mymag.info/e/635

Silo Construction & Engineering +32 51723128 www.sce.be PROFILE: mymag.info/e/1085

Sukup +1 641 892 4222 www.sukup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/652

Symaga +34 91 726 43 04 www.symaga.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/654

Top Silo Constructions (TSC) +31 543 473 979 www.tsc-silos.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/656

Van Aarsen International +31 475 579 444 www.aarsen.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/662 Temperature

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

Inteqnion +31 543 49 44 66 www.inteqnion.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/615

vibronet-Gräf GmbH & Co.KG +49 6441 62031 www.vibronet.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/663 Training

Bühler AG +41 71 955 11 11 www.buhlergroup.com PROFILE: mymag.info/e/588

IAOM +1 913 338 3377 www.iaom.info

IFF +495307 92220 www.iff-braunschweig.de

the interview

With over 20 years’ experience in the pet food sector, Gunnar Hallmann started his career at Arovit (now C&D Foods) as a Project Manager in 1999. During that time, Mr Hallmann held a number of high-level positions in project, factory and product management, before progressing into more strategic operational roles.

Born and educated in Denmark, he holds degrees in production technology and business administration, and a Master’s in packaging technology and general management.

In 2020 Gunnar Hallmann joined Andritz Feed & Biofuel, where his considerable expertise has been instrumental in driving the company’s aqua and pet food business forward.

You have a career that spans two decades in our industry, what initially led you to get into this field?

I think it was pure luck! At the time I was spending three hours per day commuting time to get to my job, and then a role became available at a wet petfood plant close to Esbjerg, where I was living at that point. I applied for the job and was appointed and ended up staying for 22 years.

I was a local project manager and later factory manager for a dry petfood operation. Following that I became general operations manager at the original plant I had started at, before taking on a more strategic role in international sales. This progressed to international project management, where I developed installation projects across the various factories the company owned.

I joined Andritz Feed & Biofuel in October of 2020, where I now apply my experience as Industry Director for Aqua and Pet Food.

In recent years what are the most critical technological developments that you have witnessed in our sector?

One of the key things to mention here is the change in mindset that has occurred - from a focus on capital expenditure to one of analysing total cost of ownership. Attractive initial investment costs have often led to far higher expenditure down the line – due to issues such as poor insulation or simply substandard engineering – and what we are seeing is more focus on the bigger picture and how automated plant solutions add significant value in this sector.

In the petfood business, the equipment has historically required highly skilled operators, but as the available skilled labour force has shrunk, we have been focusing on making our equipment as innovative and intuitive as possible. The more automated and intuitive the systems, the less the margin for human error becomes, and this move to automated solutions will increase as labour challenges persist.

With more automation, it is important to find a partner that can deliver complete plant solutions, as a partner with these capabilities can look at automation of the whole factory - not simply individual machines.

This is important, as individual machines may be excellent in their own right, but if not properly connected to the other equipment on the line then any gains can quickly be lost.

The war in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia will have an additional impact on ingredient availability and cost. How can producers optimise resource use and reduce wastage during production processes in order to best protect their businesses from these threats?

One thing that we will see going forward is a change in consumer behaviour, as price challenges influence the decision-making process in terms of product selection. For petfood, people have started to look more closely at the cost, where perhaps before they were more inclined to select premium products over more budget friendly alternatives.

Change is happening as a result, as the need to provide premium products at keener prices increases. To achieve this, the production process must be fully optimised through close collaboration with solutions providers, reducing wastage to

a minimum. But the equation is broader than just the process itself.

Manufacturers must also look closely at the raw material ingredients that feed into that process, their availability and their logistical footprint, as well as elements such as packaging materials – which I believe will increasingly shift to more basic, sustainable options in the near future.

In light of these rising ingredient costs, how can feed producers lower the overall running costs of their processing plants?

Again, it comes down to the optimisation of your production process by getting in contact with your equipment supplier to ensure the current equipment is delivering against expectations. Energy efficiency is a key element here, and for petfood plants the largest consumer of energy is the drying process.

It may be that there are opportunities for energy reuse, which would contribute to the optimisation process, or it could be that replacing existing equipment with more efficient alternatives will deliver greater savings in terms of total cost of ownership. If we look at those that are planning new plants, selecting a single plant solutions supplier is highly recommended.

Through having one supplier that has total responsibility for the plant solution, you can ensure that they look at optimizing the equipment and, importantly, the cooperation between the individual process steps. They will take ownership of the controls, the setup and the ongoing effectiveness of the solution, helping you to achieve the lowest total cost of ownership possible.

Are there any emerging opportunities for the introduction of innovative solutions that can support industry operatives in achieving the current industry sustainability standards?

The current situation in the region has shown how vulnerable people in Europe are regarding gas consumption. In petfood plants, the dryers are often powered by natural gas, and with the dryer using up to 70 percent of the energy consumption in the plant there is an opportunity to look at alternative energy sources and also at how a certain proportion of the energy used can be reused.

Heat exchangers, for example, can help with this process by capturing rising heat, but this must be carefully managed so as not to pollute the process and cause hygiene and food safety issues.

Often, adjusting the dryer itself can deliver huge efficiency savings. For example, we recently carried out an optimisation assessment at a customer plant and found that with some adjustments and slight modifications we could help them to achieve a massive 37 percent saving in energy consumption of their dryer.

Going forward, what aspects of petfood nutrition and production would you like to see addressed and why?

I think there should, and will be, a focus on natural ingredients and alternative protein sources going forward, coupled with local sourcing in order to reduce the associated

Gunnar Hallmann, Industry Director, Aqua & Pet, Andritz Feed & Biofuel, Denmark

transport logistics.

Insects have been approved for use in Europe for some years now, but we have only just recently been given the go-ahead in the US.

This means we must also keep a close eye on the surrounding legislative elements globally in order to ensure total compliance – particularly in the petfood sector, which, as you know, is heavily regulated.

This is important, as an innovative new protein source will be rendered useless without regulatory approval. On the production side of things, energy consumption will continue to be a core point of focus, and here I would encourage manufacturers to work with a plant solutions provider that can help to identify where savings can be made through advanced technologies and improved efficiency.

AGI announces CEO leadership transition

The Board of Directors Ag Growth International Inc (AGI) names Paul Householder, AGI's current Chief Operating Officer, as its new President and Chief Executive Officer.

Mr Householder joined AGI in 2019 as EVP, International with responsibility for leading all aspects of AGI's businesses outside of North America.

In 2020, Mr Householder was promoted to EVP, Global Operations with expanded responsibility including coverage of AGI's North American businesses. In 2021, he was promoted to Chief Operating Officer, providing strategic, organisational, and administrative leadership to the day-to-day operations of AGI's business.

Prior to AGI, Mr Householder spent 28 years at Air Products and Chemicals, where he progressed through several senior positions, including general management roles with full P&L ownership of businesses in the U.S. and Brazil. In addition, he held several global leadership roles focusing on continuous improvement, business development, sales, and engineering.

Hamlet Protein appoints new CFO

Hamlet Protein, global producer of specialty ingredients for young animal nutrition, announced the hiring of CFO Poul Jørgensen. He will oversee the finance operations and IT organisation from the company's headquarters in Horsens, Denmark.

Mr Jørgensen, a graduate from the University of Southern Denmark and alumnus of the Copenhagen Business School, comes with an international background and experience in finance, IT and logistics.

“I am excited to join Hamlet Protein and help implement its' ambitious growth agenda,” states Mr Jørgensen. “It is important to invest in strong financial leadership in current volatile market conditions. We are happy to welcome Poul in our organisation, and look forward to partnering with him,” comments Hamlet Protein CEO Erik Visser.

Hamlet Protein produces soy-based protein ingredients and fibre specialties for swine, poultry, ruminant, and aquaculture at two production plants in Denmark and the US.

Timo Zipf is appointed new Agritechnica project manager

The DLG (German Agricultural Society) announce the appointment of Timo Zipf as project manager of DLG's Agritechnica, one of the world's leading trade fairs for agricultural machinery. Assuming his duties on December 1, 2022, Mr Zipf succeeds Freya von Czettritz, who was appointed CEO of DLG Holding GmbH early last month.

An agricultural economist majoring in agricultural machinery and crop production, Mr Zipf served in management roles in sales and marketing in the agricultural machinery industry after earning his master's degree from the University of Applied Sciences Südwestfalen, FH Soest, Germany.

An international non-profit organisation for agricultural industry in Germany, DLG was founded in 1885 by Max Eyth. With over 23,000 members, its main purpose is to promote technical progress and scientific advances in the food and agricultural industry, including setting standards.

Trinity AgTech grows technical farm support team

Agri-tech veterans, Scott Millar and Louise Rix, have joined Trinity AgTech in farmer-facing roles as customer success managers.

Both coming from agri-tech businesses, their new positions will see them support new and existing farm customers to measure and optimise their natural capital assets using Trinity AgTech's smart natural capital navigator, Sandy.

As a gateway between Trinity's products and services and the end user, their cross-sector agricultural expertise means improved, tailored support for farmers who are looking to build their business resilience, profitability and sustainability.

Mr Millar has spent a decade working in business development, and hails from rural roots, having graduated from Hartpury University with a degree in agriculture and land management. He will be supporting Trinity's livestock and dairy customers in his new role. He highlights that Trinity AgTech is the only sustainability platform to integrate with the market-leading crop management tools, like Gatekeeper and Muddy Boots.

Also bolstering the team's expertise with over 10 years working in customer-facing roles working directly with farmers is Ms Rix. Coupled with a strong background in agriculture, Ms Rix joins Trinity AgTech to support the company's arable and horticulture customers.

Real-time process monitoring for quality control in your maize mill

Inline measurement of most important product parameters to ensure the best quality of your maize product.

A cost-effective, real-time quality analysis from raw material to end product. It enables accurate and consistent process control, documentation, and traceability, helping you differentiate yourself in the corn milling market and increase your mill's profitability.

Scan to learn more www.buhlergroup.com

Innovations for a better world.