Current market environment, influenced by rapid urbanisation, demands healthy food due to increase in the world population, cross cultural influences, changing eating habits, change in competitive environment and of course demand for wholesome, ready-to-eat, healthy and safe food. To meet this demand companies like Buhler are continuously working on new technologies to produce safe and healthy food products.

Wheat products are staple food in most of the countries and flour millers will always have challenges to meet the demand of the market.

High Capacity Pre-cleaners

There are many changes in grain handling procedures with many millers opting for storage of wheat in large quantities in silos. Addressing the issues in this area, Buhler has developed high capacity pre-cleaners which can be accommodated in a small area. This system is completely supported by high end automation, hence millers can save the unloading time with less man power and by removing the impurities at intake stage itself, the shelf life of the grain can be improved. Production planning will become easier to meet the end user specifications. In a large country like India, the grain quality changes from place to place and region to region, with varying percentage of impurities, where millers have to depend on highly efficient equipment.

Colour sorter for wheat

In addition, extensive cleaning section having colour sorters and pearling systems to handle contaminated wheat will add value before the milling to produce quality products. Automation plays a major role in processing consistent products throughout the year with optimum efficiency of the plant.

Through automatic moisture adding system at conditioning stage, optimum level of water quantity is added to the grain (which is very important to mellow the grain for easy grinding in the mill), thus the miller can regulate the wastage of water and avoid the load variations in the milling section at balanced load in the mill with uniform moisture. This was integrated into the existing plant also all around.

As with the cleaning section, the milling section also varies from place to place and product to product. In order to understand the basic requirements of the customer, Buhler has developed local technology teams, which work with the support of the expert team at Buhler AG headquarter in Switzerland, and develop a right flow sheet suitable to the local product requirements.

In the milling section, all the processes are synchronised through automation and the miller can control the whole system from one place and the synchronisation will help to control the machine functions effectively. As a result, higher yields can be achieved with lower power consumption levels.

Innovative Atta process with PESA Mill

Buhler believes that understanding of local area requirements is very important and has come out with a new technology to produce whole wheat atta flour called PESA mill, where this mill produces the same product like chakki atta (stone grinding) with the same taste and quality of the product with better power consumption and higher yields under hygiene conditions without chemical bond made stone mills.

B?hler's pioneering process for the atta milling industry replaces traditional chakki atta with the latest milling technology. It enables to produce whole wheat atta flour of best quality, while fulfilling highest food safety standards and reducing energy consumption. As a partner, B?hler is look forward to develop successful and sustainable solutions for the needs of millers, present and future.

A look at the trends in the milling industry shows that millers are looking at converting the best available wheat to pure finished products, investing in silos for raw material as well as finished product (flour) with blending option to produce tailor made products to target the industrial food producers.

B S Muralidhara is Group Manager, Head of Sales - Grain Milling, Buhler India Pvt Ltd Mobile: 098459-59016. Email : muralidhara.bs@buhlergroup.com