Milling & Baking News - December 2, 2008 - 18

Nisshin Flour Mill

Bangkok in January 2008. Most importantly, Nisshin said expansion allowed
it to increase its research and development staff to 25.
China is another important market
for Nisshin, which in 2002 entered the
Chinese market with the formation of
Qingdao Nisshin Seifun Foods Co., Ltd,
a pre-mix business. When sales nearly
reached capacity after only three years,
Nisshin decided to double the production capacity and create a new mix company called Shin Nisshin Seifun Foods
(Qingdao) Co. The new company began operation in December 2006 with
an annual production capacity of 4,500

tonnes per year, based on an eight-hour
operation day.
Nisshin also established the Jinzhu
(Yantai) Food Research and Development Co., Ltd. in November 2005 in an
effort to analyze and evaluate the food
safety of raw material in China. It is a 5050 joint venture with Nichirei, the largest
Japanese frozen food company. Nisshin,
which during the past five years has
opened offices in China and Belgium to
gather information on investment opportunities in those regions, said China
remains the company's top priority in
expanding its flour milling business.
"The Chinese people appreciate a

good quality product and they have
a very distinct taste," Mr. Sasaki said.
"Besides China, we recognize Southeast Asia as a very attractive market,
and we will search for opportunities to
expand our business there."
One option for expanding Nisshin's
flour business that the company is not
considering, Mr. Sasaki said, is increasing the amount of flour it exports from
its Japanese mills, which is currently
about 5%.
"Export is not our main business,"
he said. "We'd rather expand by building facilities overseas." MBN
- Arvin Donley

Nisshin adds new mill in Higashinada
Highly automated facility is designed to provide the highest
level of hygiene, product safety

Emphasis on safety, hygiene
The new, highly automated mill
combines both cutting-edge technology with a variety of features designed
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to assure the best possible performance
in the all-important areas of product
quality, safety and hygiene.
"The technology or mill design features in this facility are mainly targeting
improvements of hygiene and product
safety," said Akihisa Sasaki, president
of Nisshin Flour Milling Inc.
Some of the measures taken to ensure good hygiene and product safety
include:
* pumping filtered air through to
each floor at a rate that keeps inside
pressure positive;
* the absence of windows to prevent

dust and insects from getting inside
the facility; and
* making the surfaces where the
floor meets the wall curved so that unwanted material cannot accumulate.
Mr. Sasaki explained that a typical
Nisshin flour mill has grating floors in
order for better observations or control
of operations. But the floors in the new
mill are made of concrete so that dust
cannot drop through to lower levels.
"The current priority at Nisshin is
better quality and sanitary control rather than easier operations," he said.
The plant uses no chemicals, either

NISSHIN

ne of Japan's largest flour milling complexes just got bigger
when Nisshin Flour Milling
Inc. opened a new mill with two new
milling units in Higashinada, Japan.
The $120 million (12 billion yen)
project, which began in July 2006 and
was completed in June 2008, added
7,600 cwts of daily capacity with the
addition of a D unit and E unit to three
existing milling lines. That brings the
overall daily milling capacity at the
Higashinada complex to 24,800 cwts.
The addition of the D and E units
marks the first expansion at the Higashinada complex since 1994, when
the C unit, which has a capacity of
8,900 cwts per day, was built. The facility opened in 1971 with a daily capacity of 3,500 cwts and the first expansion
occurred in 1976, when the 4,800-cwt.per-day B unit was added. The A, B
and C units are housed in a separate
mill on the Higashinada complex.
The new facility covers approximately 2,200 square meters as part of the
three-hectare complex in Higashinada,
which is a ward in the city of Kobe.
Nisshin officially celebrated the
opening of the facility with a special
ceremony on Oct. 10.

Nisshin's new flour mill in Higashinada, Japan.
Milling & Baking News

December 2, 2008 / 19

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Milling & Baking News - December 2, 2008

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