World Grain - January 2013 - 38

FEATURE: SPECIALTY FLOUR PRODUCTS

supply this market, the company works
closely with its customers to develop
the formulations they want with grains
sourced from within Switzerland.
“Swissness is an important criterion
for our customers. Some even expect regional grain from within already small
Switzerland,” Dominic Meyerhans said.
The company imports minimal
amounts of foreign grain. The small
amount it uses consists of protein-rich
wheat from Canada and Austria for
ﬂours for industrial baking processes,
and the company imports oats from
Finland where the midnight sun produces large kernels, which are important
for the oat ﬂake quality desired by the
Swiss (Birchermüesli) consumers.
Traditional millers tend to measure
success in product volume.
“This is ﬁne for the basic ﬂour market in which we see ﬁerce competition
and therefore steady price erosion,”
Dominic Meyerhans said. “Due to these
circumstances, we started to invest into
the development and production of specialty products. Hence our claim, ‘Mehr
als Mehl,’ which can be translated to
‘more than ﬂour.’ In this segment, we
need to think in value added rather than
volume and market share.”
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
In the last 18 months, the company
has introduced a number of innovative
new products. PanFresh, for instance,
is ﬂour based on all natural non-GMO
ingredients, which signiﬁcantly increases the shelf life of bakery products. The company has also introduced
a “Gipfelmehl” specialty ﬂour for crispy
butter croissants and “Pizza Verace”
ﬂour for the Italian pizza dough.
One of the company’s leading products for many years has been ParaPan.
Meyerhans Mühlen jointly developed
this ﬂour with a leading Swiss diet
provider.
“It is balanced to meet diet requirements and is so delicious that a great
number of non-diet consumers enjoy it,”
Dominic Meyerhans said.
In Switzerland, consumers are in38

creasingly sensitive to wheat gluten and
carbohydrates. Meyerhans commented
that this is either because they are allergic to wheat protein (celiac disease) or
because they perceive carbohydrates as
“fattening food.”
“We have addressed these trends by
launching a low-carb, protein-rich bread
ﬂour based on soy and oilseeds. And we
have launched new products based on
spelt, an ancient grain which has never been crossbred with modern wheat
and therefore provides well-tolerated
gluten.”
The company said that knowing the
needs of its customers is central in both
the marketing and sales department.
“Once a customer need is identiﬁed,
we evaluate the respective market segment or market niche. If we see enough
potential, we draft the requirement speciﬁcations for the new product and start
the development. Zero series products
are often given to selected customers in
order to judge the new product’s performance before its initial launch. In many
new product developments, we collaborate closely with suppliers, external
partners and research centers.”
UNIQUE DELIVERY SYSTEM
Being a family-owned company with
generations of institutional knowledge
and reputation can be helpful when
working with customers.
“In Switzerland and Central Europe,
value creation in a family-owned company is highly appreciated — for many consumers it provides conﬁdence and tangibility in an ever increasing global marketplace,” Dominic Meyerhans noted.
Approximately 70% of all the ﬂour
Meyerhans Mühlen produces is delivered in bulk. The majority of bagged
ﬂour leaves the company’s mills in
25-kg bags. Some retail and restaurant
products are bagged in 10-kg units.
In May 2012, the company introduced
a revolutionary new ﬂour delivery unit.
“Our new GustoFlex ﬂour containers were developed for customers with
a large number of bags and no room (or
no budget) for ﬂour silos,” he said.

The company’s customers can rent
a ﬂour dosing system, and basic and
specialty ﬂours can then be delivered
in stainless steel containers, which are
reﬁlled in the mill when emptied.
“The system provides a signiﬁcant increase in efﬁciency and product safety
and lowers ﬂour-dust emission in the
bakery working area,” he said.
CHALLENGES
For
generations,
Switzerland’s
strengths and weaknesses have been tied
to its geographic and cultural isolation.
“Due to the limited number of grain
producers in Switzerland, it is almost
impossible to hedge grain prices for local wheat,” Dominic Meyerhans noted.
The strength of the Swiss franc in
relation to its neighbor’s currency, the
Euro, has made exporting goods difﬁcult for many companies throughout
Switzerland.
“Some of our customers used to export their bakery products to European
markets. In many cases, this is no longer possible due to the currency crisis
or they have moved production abroad.
Therefore we experience a certain reduction in ﬂour sales to exporting producers.”
Dominic Meyerhans noted that the
biggest challenge for the Swiss wheat
milling industry is the future development of the Swiss farming industry and
how the Swiss government handles import policies on wheat, ﬂour and baked
products.
“In Germany, for instance, many
millers make no more proﬁt after years
of ﬁerce competition. Lack of innovation has fueled the downward price spiral,” he said. “If Switzerland decides
for an agricultural-free trade agreement, the Swiss milling industry will
face these low prices. Ultimately, the
consumers will have to decide on price
or quality. If they decided on price, the
rich bread culture in Switzerland will
eventually be heavily diminished or
even disappear.”
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January 2013 / World Grain / www.World-Grain.com

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