World Grain - September 2014 - 34

FEATURE: ADM MILLING'S LATEST EXPANSION

ADM Milling President Mark Kolkhorst speaks during a ceremony to celebrate the opening of the new
Beech Grove mill.

of Horizon Milling and ConAgra Flour
Milling, now known as Ardent Mills,
which, according to the 2014 Grain &
Milling Annual, has daily milling capacity of approximately 530,000 cwts.
INSIDE THE MILL
Wheat enters the "new style" cleaning house and runs through a Bühler
Vega Venta to remove light particles.
From there it passes through a wheat
heater from Steam Engineering to reduce condensation and prepare the wheat
for tempering before moving through
Bühler scourers, recycling aspirators and
the Sortex A5 color sorter for destining
and removal of unwanted seeds. Next it
passes through an Automatic Moisture
Analyzer and intensive dampener for
consistent moisture content; the temper
time is 24 hours with blending capability thanks to two flow balancers. Finally,
before being sent to the mill, the wheat is
sent through wet scouring and aspiration.
A second tempering is also possible.
The mill section features 7 doublehigh roll stands, 9 single-high roll stands,
3 10-section sifters, a four-section sifter
for rebolt, an aspirator and four purifi34

ers, all supplied by Bühler. All finished
products are weighed for exact Yield
Management, integrated in Bühler's
WinCos R2 automation system.
"The mill flow is an automated, state-ofthe-art Bühler design," ADM said. "This

automation incorporates the mill going
into suspension and temporarily stops the
process if a problem is detected. There are
sensors throughout the mill to control the
automation. The roll stands have several
automated features which include engaging when load is present and disengaging
when load is not present."
ADM said the automation and efficient
design have made the mill more efficient
and sanitary. "When a problem is detected, processing automatically stops until
the problem is corrected," the company
said. "This prevents unwanted product
accumulations that could occur."
Storage capacity for the finished product at the Beech Grove mill is 74,000
cwts. There is precise blending capability with loss-in-weight scales below
the flour bins. Microingredients feeders
are installed in load-out transfer which
allow for very flexible flour handling.
Flour can be transferred to eight loadout
bins (216-tonne; 4,800 cwts) or to existing storage and packing of the "A" and
"B" mills.
A quick loadout system which allows
ADM to fill a flour trailer with more
than 50,000 pounds of flour in about 4
minutes was installed in the "C" mill.

Indianapolis' long milling history
The opening of ADM Milling Co.'s new "C" mill at its Beech Grove facility was the
latest chapter in Indianapolis' rich history of flour milling.
It began in 1821 when Isaac Wilson, a Revolutionary War soldier, constructed a mill
on West Washington St. in Indianapolis near the White River and the National Road, a
major thoroughfare linking the east and west coasts of the United States.
Twenty years later, in 1841, John Carlisle built another mill on West Washington St.
The facility had several owners before Samuel F. Robinson acquired it in the 1870s and
organized Acme Milling Co. Robinson's heirs sold the company in 1898 to Arthur Gillet,
who consolidated the mill with his properties. The business in 1909 merged with that
of another miller. George T. Evans & Son, and was renamed Acme-Evans Co. The Evans
business had first established a mill in Indianapolis in 1832.
By 1909, the combined mills had daily capacity of 4,000 cwts, a figure that was increased to 7,000 when the mill at 710 West Washington was destroyed by a fire in 1917.
Edgar Evans, the son of George T., was president of the business from 1909 to 1933.
The younger Evans was the last surviving founder of the Millers' National Federation
and was the organization's president in 1931-32. His son-in-law, Samuel R. Harrell, was
president of the business from 1945 to 1949. The Harrells remained active in the business until it was sold to ADM Milling in 1988.
ADM Milling in 1994 closed the flour mill on West Washington in Indianapolis and
moved to the current site in Beech Grove. The Indianapolis mill was demolished as part
of the state's expansion of the White River State Park, home to the Indianapolis zoo.
September 2014 / World Grain / www.World-Grain.com

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World Grain - September 2014

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