World Grain - September 2011 - 36

FEATURE: A FORCE IN FLOUR IN FIJI

that purchase bakers ﬂour and to retail outlets, which mainly purchase “normal ﬂour” used for making roti and other domestic products. Noodle ﬂour is sold to one major manufacturer in the region and biscuit ﬂour is also produced. MILL EXPANSION The ﬁve-story milling facility was designed, installed and commissioned by Uzwil, Switzerland-based Bühler AG. The initial 24-hour production capacity was 155 tonnes of wheat, and that recently has been increased to 240 tonnes. “There is now no room to increase production capacity within the existing building based on current technology,” Eliott said. Resulting from this increase and many other factors, the company plans to increase its wheat storage capacity at the mill to 7,200 tonnes with the ability to intake grain at 200 tph. The present intake capacity is 50 tph. Grain is tipped from the container into a hopper, augered to the intake elevator and then passes over a scale. From there it is moved to a Bühler MKZM separator and through a Bühler MVSG aspirator. One of the novel features of the plant, according to Eliott, is that the wheat goes through a Bühler MOZL intensive dampening unit prior to ﬁrst dampening into the dirty wheat bins. Eliott said it is unusual to put dirty wheat over this machine due to the wear fracture, but the company decided to do so to enhance the conditioning process.The wheat cleaning plant includes ﬂow balancers, conditioning bins for blending plus a Bühler MTKB Combi-Cleaner, MTRI Indented Cylinder, an MXHS scourer and other equipment. A screening grindings plant is incorporated into the system. The milling section consists of eight Newtronic roller mills, one eight-section MPAH sifter, one four-section MPAP sifter, an MPFP puriﬁer and MVSQ aspirator. This section also includes sundry impact disruptors and bran ﬁnishers. There are four packing lines, three dedicated to ﬂour and one to Millmix.

Punja Flour employees work on the packing floor.

The wraps plant, built in 2007, produces a wide range of tortilla and roti mainly for the export market.

white wheat from Australia. The volatility of the global wheat market in recent years has been a major challenge for the company. “Given the strict price controls on ﬁnished products in Fiji, volatility of wheat pricing has a signiﬁcant effect on the business,” Eliott said. The mill produces a wide range of ﬂour products for the retail and commercial markets including Bakers
36

ﬂour, “Normal” ﬂour for domestic use for items such as Roti, Noodle ﬂour, Biscuit ﬂour, Atta Flour, wheat meal, whole meal, semolina, sharps and germ in addition to Millmix for animal feed consumption. Punja’s ﬂour is sold throughout the Paciﬁc region to countries such as Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga,Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. Punja said the customer base consists of numerous small bakeries

September 2011 / World Grain / www.World-Grain.com

http://www.World-Grain.com

World Grain - September 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of World Grain - September 2011