Mill
Training
by Roger Gilbert, Milling and Grain Sponsored and funded by Bühler, the new African Milling School was commissioned in March 2015 and took in its first batch of 27 African apprentices. The school is the brainchild of Martin Schlauri, who for the past 15 years has been Bühler’s Milling Business Unit Manager. Martin has moved from Uzwil in Switzerland to Nairobi, Kenya, where he now heads up the African Milling School.
The African Milling School comes to fruition The school is part of Bühler’s Middle-East and Africa organization and is located adjacent to the East Africa offices and Service Center.
Professional training for African millers
The new school offers comprehensive and intensive training in the milling industry with a focus on theoretical and practical training through apprenticeships. The target is to offer professional training for the next generation of millers and to expand on the knowledge base of experienced African millers. It is also to ensure that millers come to understand the new technology and equipment now being used in processing grain into high value finished products. The African Milling School is located in Nairobi, Kenya, and situated just 25 minutes from Nairobi’s international airport. “Africa is a great continent, almost one billion people with a growing demand for grain-based food due to both population growth and the movement of people to the cities. More people are moving into cities who can’t go back to their homes and grow their own food. These are the two key drivers and as a result we are seeing growth in the demand for flour and milled products.” he
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says. Local family companies that are well developed mostly own milling companies in the milling sector. “These people have the will to develop, they have the market and they are entrepreneurs, but they do not have the skills. Running an operation efficiently is always an issue. Africa has good people, it has educated people, it’s just that the skill for the miller is missing,” he told Milling and Grain when we visited Bühler’s head office in Switzerland at the end of the summer. “So this is where we said that if we, as Bühler, can contribute to the development of the milling industry in Africa, to the wealth of Africa and Africans and to educate and give them the skills to run milling plants, we aim to train 24 next year and 48 the following year so that they then pass on their knowledge in a sustainable way.
The concept of the Milling School
“We looked at different concepts such as working with Universities. It was at the time we were developing our new location in Kenya and we said, ‘Now we have a completely new location and an office and service centre, why not have the African Milling School on the same location? We have an infrastructure there.’ “The early aim was to set up a pilot school for 20-25 production managers. However, we decided to look at training millers, not just production managers. We really need to train millers, as these are the people who touch the machines, who set the rolls and who work with all the equipment through to the sifters. “That’s the concept we have implemented.” Twenty-seven apprentices will attend three four-week live-in courses per year over a two-year period. The first course took place in February-March 2015 and was booked up when Milling and Grain visited. Apprentices who successfully complete the two-year course and pass appropriate exams will graduate as millers, a qualification equivalent to a European miller in Germany, Switzerland or Austria. Mr Schlauri says participants in Europe take three years to complete the same course as many of the students start at just 16 or 17 years of age.