World Grain - March 2024 - 54

Raising interest
IAOM, milling industry partner with Girl Scouts to
educate younger generation about flour milling
by Susan Reidy
Right: Melinda
Farris, chief
executive
officer of the
IAOM, helps
the girls make
chocolate chip
cookies using
all-purpose
flour and highprotein
flour.
Left: Eric Knott,
plant manager,
Miller Milling,
lets the girls try
their hand at
making flour
with a mortar
and pestle,
hand crank and
electric grinder.
L
ike many young teenage girls, Aria Pelikan's
knowledge of flour centered eating and making
baked foods.
But after participating in a special flour milling program
with Girl Scouts, in collaboration with the milling
industry and the International Association of Operative
Millers (IAOM), the 15-year-old now understands about
the different types of flours and their uses, what products
contain flour and how the milling process has evolved.
" We learned about the history of creating flour and
how you have to sift it to get all the parts that you don't
want to eat out of your flour, " Pelikan said after the
" Flour Rangers! Milling Flour for Girl Scout Cookies "
program on Jan. 27.
Pelikan and nearly 100 other scouts, from kindergarten
through 12th grade, participated in the program offered
to the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri, at the Brentwood
Community Center in Brentwood, Missouri, US. They
earned the organization's first flour milling patch.
And while the 15-year-old high school freshman in the
Frances Howell School District in O'Fallon, Missouri, US,
doesn't plan on a career in milling, it sparked a new interest.
" It's been interesting learning about it, and I enjoy
baking, so this helped, " Pelikan said.
Raising awareness of the milling industry is a focus for
the IAOM, said Melinda Farris, chief executive officer.
" We have been trying to find ways to increase awareness
about the industry because we know it's a great
place to build a career, " she said. " We also know there
is a lot of need for a more diverse workforce, and so we
are working with the Girl Scouts because it's a great
new audience to introduce flour milling to. "
Mill employees from Ardent Mills and Miller Milling
flew in from Minnesota and Texas to participate in the
program, and were joined by a Kansas State Univeristy
student and IAOM headquarters staff.
Materials were donated by Ardent Mills, KSU and
Miller Milling. The Flour Rangers! program was sponsored
by Ardent Mills, Grain Craft and IAOM.
Flour milling 101
Through a series of stations and hands-on activities, the
girls learned about the milling process from field to fork.
Dana Edwards, quality manager, Ardent Mills, Saginaw,
Texas, US, and Jaley Walter, inside sales representative,
Ardent Mills, Minneapolis, Minnesota, US, showed the
girls examples of different wheat varieties and explained
which types of products they are generally used for.
54
March 2024 / World Grain / World-Grain.com
Photos by John Reidy
http://www.World-Grain.com
World Grain - March 2024

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