Milling & Baking News - July 4, 2017 - 14

Business X

Ardent Mills strengthens
commitment to industry

14 / July 4, 2017 XMilling & Baking News

annual internal audits and mill assessments. Customer audits occur approximately once a month, and the company
also offers tours and classes nearly every week in Commerce City and at the
AMIC in Denver.
Ardent Mills also innovates through its
Mobile Innovation Center (MIC), which
was on display at IFT17, June 25-28, in

ARDENT MILLS

DENVER - Ardent Mills considers itself as more than just a milling company.
Formed three years ago through the combining of milling assets from ConAgra
Mills, Cargill and CHS, Inc. Ardent Mills
was created "to change the way people
think about grain-based foods," said Dan
Dye, chief executive officer.
Headquartered in Denver and with
more than 40 mills, mix facilities and a
specialty bakery across the United States,
Canada and Puerto Rico, Ardent Mills
focuses on four core values: trust, serving, simplicity and safety. Speaking to
members from the American Bakers Association's Food Technical Regulatory Affairs Committee in late June, Mr. Dye said
defining its culture was foundational for
Ardent Mills from the beginning.
"We wanted to become an organization that makes a difference and changes
the way people think about grain-based
foods," Mr. Dye said. "We have a vision
that's all about being a trusted partner. We
build trust and partnership by nurturing
customers, consumers and communities."
The Ardent Mills Innovation Center
(AMIC), which has been open at the company's headquarters for a little more than
a year, supports its vision through milling,
baking and analytical research.
The AMIC employs about 20 people in
five labs. In addition to milling, baking
and analysis, it also houses an R.&D. lab
and culinary center.
The analytical lab has a variety of tests
for the grain the company mills, measuring particle size, color, moisture, protein
and ash. Each year, approximately 38,000
samples run through the AMIC's analytical lab in addition to thousands of products - including bread, cookies, pastries,
Kaiser rolls and more - that are made in
the bake lab.
Ardent Mills tests everything from
wheat that has been shipped to mills but
not yet produced, to milled wheat for
quality assurance, or even wheat samples
from new crop harvest.
The bake lab houses two small bread
lines that can produce up to 48 loaves a
day on each line, and the milling lab sifts,
cleans, tempers and mills wheat on an experimental level.
In addition to the Denver headquarters and one of two mills in Colorado,
the company's Commerce City mill -
known as the "home of Ultragrain" -
runs three shifts five to six days a week
and turns out up to 1.8 million lbs of
flour a day that's shipped coast to coast.
The mill is BRC-certified and conducts

Ardent Mills' innovation center features a labsized flour mill, a wheat quality and baking
laboratory, a culinary test kitchen and chef's
demonstration area.

Las Vegas. A 53-foot semi-truck, the MIC
was launched in 2014 as a way to bring
education on grain-based foods - as
well as brand awareness for the thennewly formed Ardent Mills - to customers' front door. In the MIC, Ardent Mills
provides its customers an opportunity to
learn the basics of the company's products and use them to create foods such as
pizza crust or pasta.
"This is an opportunity to teach customers about key trends going on in
the industry," said Jamie Russell, marketing manager, Ardent Mills. "We've
talked at a high level about the enlightened eating trend to tell a story about
our ingredients and what they provide,
as well as the authenticity of how we
provide those ingredients."
The MIC has traveled across the country and to Canada, and later this year will
make its way to Puerto Rico.
At IFT, the MIC showcased an allnew look and awning. Additionally, the
MIC featured a rotating menu each day
of the show for breakfast, lunch and afternoon snacks. Also highlighted was
the new Ardent Mills Great Plains Quinoa, which is grown in North America
and has unique sourcing capabilities for
volume and scale.
Nature's Color Barley is part of a new
portfolio of products that includes PurePurple Barley, Blackjack Barley and TrueBlue Barley in flakes, flour and kernels. MBN
bakingbusiness.com / world-grain.com

http://www.bakingbusiness.com http://www.world-grain.com http://www.westernsugar.com

Milling & Baking News - July 4, 2017

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