News

Star of the West Milling to expand Indiana flour milling capacity

Michigan-based Star of the West Milling has announced plans to more than triple its flour milling capacity at its facility in Northern Indiana. 

The mill currently processes 800,000 pounds of soft wheat flour.  The company intends to add an additional 1.5 million pounds of conventional soft wheat production and 500,000 pounds of pathogen-mitigated capacity. 

Flour milling division vice president Karina Spencer says more wheat from that region will be needed. “This expansion, we project, with require an additional 9 million bushels of soft red winter wheat in that northeast Indiana region,” she says.  “What that means is we’re looking to increase our consumption of soft red winter wheat for the production of flour in this new facility.”

She tells Brownfield they’re also looking to market affordable pathogen-mitigated flour, which is the process of taking raw flour and making it a read-to-eat ingredient, and the new facility will be the first of its kind in the U.S.  “We will incorporate a step that will reduce the pathogen load or the micro-load by 5-log,” she says.  “Which means it is reducing that micro-load in the flour by 99.999%.” She says the process won’t impact the functionality of the flour.

Star of the West CEO Jim Howe says the plans are ambitious, but the project is a significant step forward in helping the company meet its strategic objective of partnering with producers and food processors with the goal of feeding the world. 

AUDIO: Karina Spencer, Star of the West Milling