F
&FEED MILLING TECHNOLOGY
46 | September - October 2014
GRAIN
Irish Flour Milling and the German connection by Ruby Bircher and Tom Blacker
T
he resurrection of the Irish milling industry throughout the 1930’s would not have been possible without the German company Miag, acquired by Bühler in 1972. Delving back through the past, a clear connection emerges between Irish flour milling and German engineering.
Although it seemed to catapult Britain into a new, advanced age, Ireland remained relatively untouched by the Industrial Revolution. By the early twentieth century, Ireland had a population of 4,192,000 most of which had by then migrated abroad in search of employment due to the lack of manufacturing industries in towns. Milling industries were rare as most of the flour was imported - around 3,000,000 sacks of flour were imported from various countries, mainly Great Britain, Canada and the United States. However, by around 1934, the Irish government granted fewer licences for importing flour as their interest in restarting the mills grew. With that, the import of flour into Ireland ceased almost entirely. Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford, four major Irish cities, were prime places to begin reconstructing the Irish milling industry due to the available access that came with being close to water - this made it both easier and quicker for ships to load and unload their products. The Merchants Warehousing Co. Ltd. of Dublin had MIAG build ‘extensive and modern grain discharging and storage plants’. Close to a quay that ships frequented, grain was unloaded safely and efficiently via conveyors that travelled from the quay to the plant’s silos and back. The unloading towers that transported the goods were built high up so as not to impede with the other products that were unloaded by cranes - this was where practically all of the imported grain for the Dublin mills arrived. In 1933, the reconstruction of the Dublin North City Milling Co. Ltd. was ordered.
Once finished, the mill was considered a ‘testimonial of the German milling engineering art’ and, thanks to MIAG, had a daily capacity of 70,000 kg of wheat. Messrs. Byrne, Nahony & Co. Ltd., previous flour importers, closed after the government restricted the number of people with a licence to partake in the trade. However, as the renewed Irish milling industry grew, they were forced to start manufacturing the flour themselves, resulting in them ordering milling equipment from MIAG in May 1934. By 1935, the plant was in operation using the ‘most modern flour milling equipment’. This included ‘model H roller mills with Servo regulation’, producing the highest yields of flour with the lowest ash content. By 1936, MIAG had supplied Dublin with two mills and was in the process of building a third; the industry’s reputation was only getting more and more impressive. As livestock export began to noticeably decline, less money was being spent on wheat and grain import. Resultantly, homegrown wheat was on the increase in order to support the milling industry. Originally, approximately 25 per cent of wheat in Ireland was home-grown; due to the export reduction, it was the government’s intention to increase the production to at least 50 per cent. Irish weather allowed a moist climate and fertile soil that made up good crop conditions. However, the frequent rains made ripening difficult and a dry harvest rare-on average Irish-grown wheat had a moisture content of around 18 per cent, sometimes even as high as 22 per cent. Storage space was required as well as drying equipment to improve the quality of the wheat. MIAG supplied ‘10 drying plants with a capacity of 50 tonnes per hour, extracting 5 per cent of water’ as well as silos and new, dry containers for the wheat to be deposited in. The Dublin Port Milling Co. Ltd. was built housing three Special MIAG Dryers, which were made of ‘DuroAluminium’ to avoid rusting, the dryers were 19.35m tall with radiators found on top for
‘warming and sweating the wheat’. The design of the MIAG Special Dryers enabled it to work automatically, allowing the wheat to dry at a secured, set temperature. This concluded in moisture content of around 14 per cent, significantly lower than the previous figures. MIAG, as a result of such positive feedback, built each Mill a steel silo plant with a drying plant in 1936. The company’s esteemed reputation further encouraged the mill at Maryborough to extend the plant there by 9 steel bins, increasing its capacity to around 300,000 kg. In 1939, World War Two began, altering the milling industries. Many factories had to begin the production of weaponry and warcraft to facilitate their country’s army. MIAG, Brunswick, was one of these factories that resulted in the manufacture of the Mark 3 Panzer armoured assault gun - a medium sized tank. After recovering from the war, MIAG returned to the milling industry until it was taken over by Bühler in the 1970s. Information online states that: Following on, Bühler AG of Uzwil Switzerland took control and utilised the site for producing milling machinery. As outlined in Buhler: 150 Years of Innovation for a better world, 1972 marked the ‘Acquisition of MIAG, Mühlenbau and Industrie GmbH, Braunschweig, Germany, including 11 of its subsidiaries. MIAG was created in 1925 by the merger of the five largest German mill manufacturers and was one of the Bühler Company’s biggest competitors.’ Concluding this, it is clear that Bühler were savvy millers doing wonders for the future that stands well today and sustainably for the future.
Summertime experiencing premier German milling expertise
The London and South East Millers Society (LSEMS) hosted a great annual summer field trip to Muehle Rüningen at the end of June 2014. The purpose of visiting one of Germany’s oldest flour mills and a Bühler