World Grain - January 2023 - 30

FEATURE: HISTORIC BRITISH MILLING COMPANY INVESTS IN ITS FUTURE
trimmed from 150 to four. Eventually, many started to
return to the site but it inevitably delayed the opening.
The company still managed to begin operating the £47
million flour mill at the start of 2021 with the site becoming
fully operational during the spring of that year.
The result is a game-changing, highly automated facility
that stands six stories tall and can process up to 450
tonnes of wheat per day.
David Wright said the new plant features improved
process flow, increased wheat and flour storage, a larger
warehouse and cutting-edge technology that increased
efficiency at all levels of the operation.
The milling
section of
the six-story
plant features
Bühler's
Antares roller
mills.
Ponders End, to erect the plant at a new location.
" The new mill at Harlow is one of the most modern
and technically advanced of its kind in the world, " said
James Wright, who has worked at the family mill for
more than 10 years.
The land where the new mill stands, located 10 miles
to the north of the historic Ponders End site, was purchased
by GR Wright in 2016 from defense contractor
Raytheon. The building on the premises was not conducive
for flour milling so it was demolished to make room
for the new milling facility, which meant the site was
designed from scratch. Construction began in 2019 with
Clegg Food Projects serving as the general contractor.
Trying to build a new flour mill during a global pandemic
was frustrating and challenging, David Wright said.
" We built the new mill facility during COVID, which
delayed the project, " David Wright said.
Shortly after the global lockdown commenced in the
spring of 2020 due to COVID-19, the number of contractors
on the mill site in Harlow, Essex, England, was
GR Wright and Sons played
key role during WW II
GR Wright and Sons played a critical role in aiding Britain
when it was under attack by the Germans in World War II.
When the Second World War began in 1939, GR
Wright and Sons' flour mill at Ponders End was placed
under control of the British government to help secure
food supplies for the nation and to supplement the losses
caused by the bombing of the mills located in the
London Docks.
Production at the Ponders End mill during WW II was
increased considerably by extending the work flow at
the mill to seven days a week, 52 weeks per year for the
duration of the conflict, which ended in 1945.
Fortunately, the mill did not suffer any serious damage
during the war from enemy action, although the constant
operation of the plant for six years took a toll on
the machinery, according to GR Wright and Sons.
30
Partnering again with Bühler
GR Wright and Sons turned to their longtime milling
technology partner Bühler AG, Uzwil, Switzerland, to
install the milling equipment in the new plant. The packaging
equipment was supplied by Belgium-based Arodo
and Germany-based Fawema.
The heart of the mill features Bühler's Antares roller
mills, Polaris purifiers and Sirius sifters.
The roller mills feature recipe-driven automatic roll
gap adjustment and automatic roll temperature monitoring
through Bühler's Mercury SCADA software.
GR Wright's Harlow facility is the first flour mill in the
United Kingdom to use this cutting-edge control system.
Bühler also installed its MYRG technology, which allows
for continuous online measurement of finished
products. The system allows GR Wright and Sons to
continuously monitor protein, moisture, water absorption,
and bran specs that impact the end product.
The plant also relies on Bühler Insights, a cloud-based
monitoring system, to analyze all aspects of production.
The control screen can go to replay mode so operators
can go through the process from startup of any run to
check where and why a problem might have occurred.
James Wright said Bühler Insights has already positively
impacted the company's flour quality.
" Bühler Insights aggregates all of our production data
into the Bühler Cloud, " James Wright said. " This service
provides us with many valuable tools. These include an
error and downtime analysis module. This tells us about
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