World Grain - December 2021 - 44

FEATURE: WUDELI UNDERGOES ANOTHER EXPANSION
movement of pallets in the warehouse and loading onto
trucks. Such technology was introduced at the 3,000-tonneper-day
greenfield mill opened in late 2019 in Handan City in
southern Hebei Province.
As one of the southernmost of Wudeli's operations, the
Suiping mill is meant to target burgeoning urban demand
for wheat-based foods in the provinces south of the Yangtze
River, where rice is the main crop and traditional staple food.
Unlike its main competitors which have built many of their
mills near China's largest cities, Wudeli's strategy from the
outset has been to locate its ever-larger plants in the wheat
production zone and count on the country's rapidly developing
transportation infrastructure for movement of a wide
range of flour types to urban consumers.
Orders from a national network of over 3,000 distributors
are handled through one central sales office at the company's
headquarters. Dispatch of flour is mainly in trucks but also by
river transport and rail.
According to a company spokesperson, the main impact
of the COVID-19 pandemic on Wudeli flour sales has been
a continuing boom in demand for small packaging as households
prepare more wheat-based foods at home.
As recently as late 2018, when Wudeli's daily production
capacity was already a world-leading 40,000 tonnes, the
management of the family-held company declared a target
to reach 80,000 tonnes of daily capacity within the next five
years, enough to meet one-third of all Chinese flour consumption
demand.
The disruptions of the pandemic haven't significantly flattened
Wudeli's growth curve. Prior to inauguration of the
Suiping mill, Wudeli opened a 4,000-tonne-per-day mill in
Shanxi Province. In November, a 3,000-tonne capacity addition
was completed at an existing mill to bring the group total
to 64,000 tonnes per day. Currently under construction is another
4,000-tonne-per-day mill in Linyi, Shandong Province.
The company is also constructing a new headquarters building
in Handan City on China's main north-south high speed
train line. Once construction is complete, many staff will relocate
from much smaller Daming City, where the company
started its first mill around 30 years ago. The company said
the new location will make easier the hiring of highly qualified
employees thanks to better transportation links.
Management philosophy
Top managers ascribe their company's success to a singleminded
focus on producing the highest quality flour at a competitive
cost by adhering to stringent standards and building
larger, more efficient mills with the best technology available.
An article about Wudeli on Bühler's website mentions that
" according to the relevant state provisions, tolerance for insects,
mildew, sprouts, and other impurities in the wheat should
not exceed 6%. Wudeli has set a much higher standard and
rejects all wheat that contains more than 1 % foreign matter. "
Beyond the standard price for quality business formula,
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December 2021 / World Grain / World-Grain.com
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World Grain - December 2021

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