The company's flour is packed in bags ranging in size from 2 to 50 lbs.
Long mill flow
Reuel Foote said for the type of flour that Stafford County Mills produces, it is important for newly harvested wheat (usually brought to the elevator in June and July) to go “through a sweat” in storage before sending it to the mill.
“We want to peel the bran; we don’t want to pulverize it,” he said. “We don’t put new crop wheat into the mill until September. We have to carry wheat over for that and slowly blend it in with old crop wheat to keep it consistent.”
Wheat coming into the mill’s cleaning house, which features all Bühler equipment, including a Combicleaner, goes through a 12-hour tempering. The product is run through a longer mill flow, which includes more sifting than in a typical flour mill.
The mill, which went through its last expansion about a decade ago, going from 1,000 cwts to 2,400 cwts per day, includes Witt single roll stands, Bühler double high roller mills, Bühler and Alapala purifiers, Great Western wooden sifters, and pneumatics from Bühler and Kice. Flour is stored in three 100,000-lb-capacity bins and four bins with capacity of 150,000 lbs.
Since almost all of the company’s flour is bagged in either, 2-, 5-, 25- or 50-lb bags, the packing house is a critical part of Stafford County Mills’ operation. It features automatic packers manufactured by Italpack and Excelpack, and is operated by seven full-time employees Monday through Friday. Overall, the company has 40 employees, including eight full-time employees in the mill.
Almost all of the company’s flour is transported by truck by utilizing local trucking companies, Derek Foote said.
“We aren’t experts in getting backhauls so it’s just more economical for us to source that out,” he said.
Reuel Foote said the company will soon be introducing a flour bag that features the Hudson Cream logo and a wind turbine to emphasize that the product is made using wind energy.
