Milling & Baking News - June 28, 2022 - 24

PHM BRANDS AND ENERGIS
SOSLAND PUBLISHING
years
TUES | 06 28 2022
the data tells you. We're just on the cusp
of that. We're starting to have roller mills
that can tell us about roll temperature and
roll force and kilowatts consumed - all
toward reaching maximum efficiency and
productivity. "
Another key benefit? Integrated control
systems that join on-site and remote
management enabling remote troubleshooting.
" In
our case, working with Bühler, a
miller can literally dial up Switzerland
or Minneapolis and ask that person to get
online and view the operating parameters
and consult on what to do about it, " Mr.
Siemer said. " Software suppliers can open
the hatch, get inside and try to diagnose
your system. Millers in different locations
of the same organization can also share
information with each other. It's something
we've just been able to do within the
past few years, to call on experts, reliable
people from different places and have
them actually participate in the troubleshooting
process in real time. "
As US flour mills continue to migrate
to new technology and processes that are
more autonomous, there will be a need for
skilled mill workers schooled in the new
and the old, said Kent Juliot, vice president
of research, quality and technical
services with Ardent Mills.
" Even in 10 years, the industry will still
have older mills, so you'll need people that
know both sides, those who can manually
adjust mill rolls but also understand the
logic of an automated controls system, "
Mr. Juliot said. " With labor shortages,
newer systems can reduce the number
of people needed, but the pressure from
the technical side will be even greater,
because the education and knowledge
will have to span all the way down to just
above the waterwheel. The future of milling
is going to be exciting and new, but we
can't forget the old. "
SORTED AND BINNED
The methods for removing corn, soybeans,
husks, straw and other dockage
from incoming wheat were
once limited to a basic
separator and a scourer to
clean out the dust from the
crease. Mechanical cleaning
gave way to aspiration,
which paved the way for
precision grain cleaning
systems such as the color, or
optical, sorter. It's the closest
thing to a revolutionary
technology the industry had
seen in about 60 years.
These cleaning systems combine sophisJuliot
ticated
cameras with precision equipment
using sharp blasts of air to knock out
impurities that may have commingled
with wheat at an elevator or aboard a rail
car. It eliminates non-grain contaminants
and sorts supplies by characteristic. Color
sorters have improved consistently since
their debut. Today, most all new plants
employ them, and many older mills have
retrofitted them. The technology has
moved from black-and-white to color cameras
and now to infrared scanning. Sorting
technology today allows mills to better
handle damaged wheat. For example, it can
salvage more good wheat from a shipment
with elevated dockage, disease such as scab
and other macrotoxins, such as vomitoxin.
It's clear to experts that the future holds
further refinement of optical sorting technology.
" Mill
technology keeps improving, and
if we think to the future, the technology
in sorters will probably blow our minds
in ways we can't even dream of right now, "
Mr. Juliot said. " For example, they currently
use spectral analysis that can give
you an actual analysis of each individual
24 MILLING & BAKING NEWS
wheat berry and, in my opinion, they'll
become amazingly high-tech in the foreseeable
future. "
Cleaning out impurities relies on the
color sorter, which compares kernels with
references it's already learned, and reacts
quicker than any human ever could. But
what of the nearly invisible threats to
food safety, the mycotoxins? Cutting-edge
technology on the horizon aims to eliminate
them with a method more efficient
and economical than ever at a time when
the US Food and Drug Administration has
indicated pathogens are on
their radar and near the top
of their list.
" Pathogens are right up
there with leafy greens and
everything else on FDA's list,
so having a mitigation step
in place, they expect you
to have it, " said Brad Allen,
chief technical officer at PHM
Brands, Denver.
Several methods of handling
this problem are on the
horizon. One of those already operates
at PHM's Dawn, Texas, plant, having
been adapted for the food industry by
PHM Brands' Energis Solutions in a joint
venture with the technology's inventors.
Energis is manufacturing equipment
that produces a treatment solution on
site. It yields a similar reduction to other
systems developed since the turn of the
century 22 years ago, " but we're doing
the head end of the process, so you're not
making a ready-to-eat claim like other
methods do, but you're getting the brand
protection and you're not going to get a
recall, " Mr. Allen said.
The advance of that and future pathogen
elimination technologies could spur adoption
of an industry-wide standard, a development
that would please Mr. Siemer.
" It's not something I'd like to make any
money on as a proprietary advantage, " he
said. " I'd just like to have everybody agree
that we're going to use it for certain products.
And I'd like to see it applied to flour
rather than wheat, because that gives you a
lot more flexibility. Unfortunately, none of
the systems that I'm aware of right now are
used on flour, they're used on wheat before
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Milling & Baking News - June 28, 2022

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