08/07/2013: Mühlenchemie strengthens position in Turkish market; silo hotel closes; Drop in grain no danger to food security

Turkey is one of the most dynamic and complex markets in the world. In order to meet the increasing demands of local bakeries producing bread and pastry goods, Mühlenchemie and its long-standing distribution partner ABP are intensifying their cooperation. 

The joint venture intends to meet the challenges facing flour improvement in Turkey and its neighbouring regions.
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An Ohio hotel built in former grain silo has closed.

Akron's Quaker Square Inn closed it's doors last week. The unusual  building will now be converted into additional student housing University of Akron students.

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Though China's grain self-sufficiency rate has dropped below 90 percent, it does not mean the country's food security is endangered, said Mei Xinyu, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation at the Ministry of Commerce.

In 2012, China's grain output rose for a ninth consecutive year to a record high of 589.57 million tons. Growing yields, however, did not rein in surging imports.  
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Quaker Square from the southwest (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

First Mühlenchemie symposium in francophone Africa

First Mühlenchemie symposium in francophone Africa

Flour treatment specialist provides knowledge transfer for local markets on all continents - focusing on quality improvement and flour enrichment

#3 Flour & friends (Photo credit: mrlins)

For the first time, flour treatment specialist Mühlenchemie has invited industry and mill representatives from francophone Africa to learn about the latest possibilities for flour treatment and enrichment. 80 attendees from seven countries met at a three-day symposium in Douala, Cameroon.

After opening remarks by Mr. Engelbert Nama, Managing director of Ingrecam and Mühlenchemie’s agent for more than 10 years, participants listened to presentations by users and representatives of public institutions. In addition the attendees gained valuable information through practical exercises and demonstrations. Some of these were held by representatives of partner companies like La Pasta, Chopin, and Brabender. Flour enrichment with essential vitamins and minerals was another focus of the symposium. Experts from Mühlenchemie, Helen Keller International and the Flour Fortification Initiative showed how the body can be efficiently supplied with sufficient nutrients through flour enrichment, to prevent deficiencies and illness.

“In francophone Africa, the requirements on flour production continue to grow. Buyers expect consistent quality, but production must also remain economical,” said Lennart Kutschinski, Mühlenchemie Managing Director. “This makes flour standardisation and improvement more and more important. To provide it, we’ve bundled our expertise from over 120 countries to make knowledge packages available to millers and bakers in the region,” said Kutschinski.

Mühlenchemie’s choice of a venue for the event was no accident. As Kutschinski put it, “The flour market in Cameroon is representative of francophone Africa as a whole. Flour is a basic ingredient for the people there, and goes into the pasta and bread that people eat every day. With twelve mills, the country has the third largest capacity in the region, and is the largest grain importer in francophone Africa. This market dynamic gives rise to wide fluctuations in flour quality, which the processing companies must then compensate for.” For this reason and due to the positive response, Mühlenchemie, which has had a presence in Cameroon since 1998, plans to repeat the symposium in another country in francophone Africa.

Efficient baking without guar gum powder

Efficient baking without guar gum powder

Mühlenchemie has developed EMCEbest WA as an alternative to guar gum powder – the new product ensures optimum water binding, stability and freshness in bread baking – a variant also permits “clean label” formulations

Ahrensburg, 06 June 2012. Because of the rising price and declining availability of guar gum powder, the baking industry is seeking alternatives to this raw material. This has led the flour improvement specialist Mühlenchemie to develop a new combination of active enzymatic ingredients.

Guar gum (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the production of bread and bread rolls EMCEbest WA serves as an efficient replacement for guar gum powder for water absorption; it also ensures better stability of the dough during preparation and over four percent greater baked volume than guar gum powder. The variant EMCEbest WA Pure also makes it possible to offer “clean label” products, since the enzymatic ingredients in this composition do not require E numbers.

Guar gum powder is the best known and most widely used hydrocolloid in the food industry. One of the main reasons for the success of this raw material is that it used to be fairly cheap. But the demand for guar is currently rising by leaps and bounds because of its increasing use in oil and natural gas production.

To make manufacturers of bakery products less dependent on the supply of guar gum, Mühlenchemie’s applications technologists have now developed an additive that can be used as an economical and nevertheless high-quality alternative in the production of bread and rolls.

In extensive tests a solution was found in the form of a combination of vegetable fibres, hydrocolloids and enzymes that achieves much better stability in the Farinogram than guar gum powder at the same amount.

Moreover, the new EMCEbest WA ensures pleasantly dry doughs immediately after preparation and needs no additional swelling time.

Furthermore, baking trials with a usage level of one percent (flour basis) resulted in an increase in volume of over four percent compared to guar gum powder with normal proofing and over-proofing.

For companies that wish to do without additives that have to be declared, Mühlenchemie offers the variant EMCEbest WA Pure. With the use of one percent EMCEbest WA Pure (flour basis), six to ten percent more water can be added that without additives, depending on the formulation. The doughs are easy to process nevertheless, and do not become sticky.

The Texture Analyser shows the resulting moistness as softness and elasticity of the crumb, which has an even texture. Products made with EMCEbest WA Pure also have up to four percent more volume than with guar gum powder.

These positive effects were confirmed with both directly processed and over-fermented doughs for bread, rolls and baguettes, and also with heavy doughs for products containing dried fruit. EMCEbest WA Pure is therefore the ideal ingredient for ensuring stability, high volume yield, freshness and economy in the industrial production of goods from “clean label” recipes.

For further information please contact:

Published by:

Mühlenchemie GmbH & Co. KG

Nicole Schulze (Marketing)

Kurt-Fischer-Straße 55

D-22926 Ahrensburg

E-mail:  nschulze@muehlenchemie.de

Mühlenchemie extends Latin American presence

The flour improvement specialist, Mühlenchemie aims to open up new markets through more presence on the spot.

According to the company, the food industry on the South American continent is developing dynamically. The production of basic foods like flour, especially, is changing fundamentally as a result of new eating habits and a complex situation in the raw material markets. This has led Mühlenchemie GmbH & Co. KG to intensify its efforts to offer mills individual advice. In order to achieve this objective more efficiently on the spot, the company has appointed Philipp Mark Dunkel as the new Business Development Manager for the affiliate in Brazil. The experienced South America expert jointed the flour improvement specialist two years ago, and in his capacity as Regional Sales Manager he is responsible for other Latin American markets as well as Brazil.

Detlev Rösler, Mühlenchemie’s Area Sales Director for Latin America, explains the background: “The challenges that face flour production on this huge continent vary widely. Some countries like Peru and Ecuador are totally dependent on imported wheat, whereas Chile, Argentina and Brazil make use of wheat grown locally and augment it with imports as needed. These imports are in large lots, and the additive profile has to be adjusted to suit each new lot.”

All the mills face the challenge of achieving uniformly high quality as cheaply as possible for all manner of different flour applications. In order to give its customers optimum support, Mühlenchemie is continuously enlarging its capacity for consultancy and service in South America. The company is already represented through two foreign affiliates of its own in Mexico and Brazil and employs its own team of regional sales managers. In future Philipp Mark Dunkel will have the additional task of seeking new solutions to meet the local challenges of the Brazilian market together with his customers. An important basis for this is contact with the applications research team at the trial bakery of the Mühlenchemie headquarters in Ahrensburg, near Hamburg.

Media contact: Marc von Bandemer, email: mvb@prvhh.de

The Global Miller, published and supported by the GFMT Magazine and the International Milling Directory from Perendale Publishers. And blogs are written by the staff of Grain & Feed Milling Technology daily. Get your copy of 'PPLAPP', our mobile web application which will allow you to view this blog and other useful information while on the move.