Author: Tony Gaertner

Sustainability Week Calls Recap

Kickoff Call

This year was Miller Milling’s second annual Sustainability Week! The week was a success due to the engagement of every team across the company. Thank you to everyone who participated! This year’s theme was Educate, Communicate, and Act with the various activities of the week being aligned with one or more of the topics.

Sustainability Week Calls Recap

Kickoff Call

The week started out on Monday with a Kick-off call in which the company heard from Joe Girdner, CEO and Seichiro Takahashi, Nisshin Executive Officer of Environment about the importance of sustainability at Miller Milling and beyond at Nisshin Seifun Group. The company then welcomed Sarah Beth Aubrey, a special guest speaker of the week. Sarah Beth highlighted the importance of aligning the ESG strategy at Miller Milling with the company values of Safety, Service, Accountability, and Collaboration. She also spoke about the risks and benefits of incorporating sustainability into the company’s culture and strategy.

Regenerative Ag Call

On Thursday, we had the pleasure of hearing from the Director of Sustainability at Scoular, Beth Stebbins. Scoular is one of Miller Milling’s important wheat suppliers that we started a Regenerative Ag Partnership with this year. Beth gave the company an informative landscape of regenerative agriculture, how it supports sustainability goals across the entire supply chain, and shared details about our program.

Sustainability Highlights Call

To wrap up the week on Friday, the company had the opportunity to hear from the Plant Sustainability Teams about their volunteer efforts from the year along with their most successful sustainability projects. The company was successful in completing 845 hours of community service collectively, showing each location’s commitment to their local communities. Additionally, the Plants identified and implemented several sustainable solutions at the mills ranging from eliminating Styrofoam cups, to LED projects, to diverting organic waste from landfills, to installing EV chargers.

Sustainability Week Activities Recap

Lunch & Learn: Recycling

This year’s Lunch & Learn topic was recycling. Although recycling seems like a simple topic, it can be more complicated than one might think. The Lunch & Learn covered what exactly recycling is, recycling statistics, why recycling is important, what cannot be recycled, how to recycle correctly, and ways to reduce waste in everyday life. Attendees were entered into a raffle to win a hydroponic indoor gardening system at each location.

Local Volunteer Events

An important part of sustainability at Miller Milling is the presence we have in our local communities. Volunteer events were a big part of the week for every location. We are off to a great start towards our 2024 goal of 1000 hours of community service! Below are the organizations that each location volunteered at during Sustainability Week:

• Winchester: Apple Blossom Festival, Rescue Mission Clean Up, and Blood Drive
• Saginaw: CommunityLink Food Bank
• Oakland: Alameda County Community Food Bank
• Fresno: Central California Blood Center and Food Bank
• Los Angeles: LA Regional Food Bank
• Corporate: Open Arms of Minnesota

Carbon Footprint Challenge

The Carbon Footprint Challenge was meant to spark individual awareness and reflection of the impact everyday activities have on the environment. Many of our day-to-day decisions impact the carbon footprint we have, and it is often something we are not conscious of. Some of the topics the challenge measures are travel, home, food, and shopping. Those who participated were entered into two raffles: one for the grand prize of an e-bike or mountain bike, and one for a local prize of a Force of Nature Grill Master Box.

 

Food Drive

Each location held a food drive in which employees brought in non-perishables throughout the week. The items were then donated to local food banks to support those in need. The company collected a total of over 1000 pounds of food!

Sustainability Suggestion Box

Employees submitted their suggestions of how Miller Milling can be more sustainable at the mills, offices, and beyond throughout the week. These suggestions will be used by the local sustainability teams to implement new projects that will continuously improve our impact on the environment.

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As we celebrate Earth Day today, know that your contributions—however seemingly small—are meaningful. As Jane Goodall once said,

“The small choices we make each day can lead to the kind of world we all want for the future.”

Thank you to the Sustainability Vision Team, the Plant Sustainability Teams, and each employee who participated in making Sustainability Week a success!

 

Corporate

Oakland

Los Angeles

Fresno

Winchester

Saginaw

MEDIA CONTACT:

William Untereker
Director of Legal & PR
Miller Milling
Will.Untereker@MillerMilling.com

Miller Milling Adds Innovation and Technical Center in Saginaw, Texas.

The new center will serve all five of the company’s mills and add flexibility to test and produce a wide array of products to its current customer offerings.

BLOOMINGTON, Minn., January 10, 2024 – Miller Milling Co., a leader in the milling industry, has broken ground for its Innovation and Technical Center in Saginaw on December 18. The center, located at 176 Fairmount Street, will serve all five of the company’s U.S. mills, 2 of sister company Rogers Foods’ mills in Canada, and be available to its customers.

The center will enable the testing and analysis of baking processes from grain to baked goods across a wide range of flours and products. It will include a small-scale mill that can replicate the grain production of the company’s large mills and a full bakery that will greatly enhance the company’s customer offerings.

The Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Kevin Sebby, explained, “Adding the Innovation and Technical Center allows us to gather valuable data about our products and bring more proactive solutions to our customers, whether they purchase by the bag or in bulk.”

Customers will also be able to gain expert advice and insight into product development through in- house testing and opportunities for production improvements.

“Being able to own these processes in-house lets us bring tangible benefits to both our mills and our customers,” says Sebby. “We’ll be able to have timely data for the mills and bring more support to our customers of all sizes, testing flours used and doing everything from troubleshooting to baking up a wide variety of products on site. One good example is the rise of products using the process of regenerative agriculture. If we’re introducing a flour or a product to a customer, we can bring them in, bake the products, and show results against a conventional product.”

Frank Dale Construction of Southlake, TX, is leading the project. The building is scheduled to be completed in late 2024.

For more information on Miller Milling’s operations, visit https://millermilling.com/.

About Miller Milling

Founded in Minneapolis in 1985, Miller Milling is a leader in the milling industry and operates five strategically located facilities across the country. Miller Milling joined Nisshin Seifun Group in 2012. The company is a full-service milling resource that prides itself on its commitment to customer service and unparalleled attention to detail. Given its strength, service, and diversity of products, customers have come to expect Miller Milling as a long-term partner and resource. Learn more at www.millermilling.com.

About Nisshin Seifun Group

Founded in Japan in 1900, the Nisshin Seifun Group has become that country’s largest flour milling company and has diversified into a wide range of business areas. It operates flour mills in Asia, North America, and Oceania. As a globally expanding business, the Nisshin Seifun Group helps to enhance people’s lives by supporting healthy lifestyles and building food infrastructure. Learn more at www.nisshin.com/english.

Volunteer Projects

All in all, Miller Milling’s first Sustainability Week was a success in engaging the company in different ways through personal reflection, team collaboration, and community efforts. Though Sustainability Week is complete, Miller Milling hopes to continue the conversation and engagement around this topic.  

BLOOMINGTON, MINNESOTA, US — Miller Milling Co., a part of Japan-based Nisshin Seifun Group, recently announced plans to expand its solar power capabilities at its flour mill in Fresno, California, US.

Company officials said the expansion will add 1.01 megawatts of DC electricity that will be transformed and used at the mill. This amount plus the existing 1.01 megawatts of electricity being produced through solar will satisfy roughly 33% of the total electrical demand of the facility, the company said.   

Miller Milling Co.’s solar power system became operational toward the end of 2017, Damon Sidles, plant manager, said in a 2018 article in World Grain. The project involved the installation of 2,340 solar panels required for the project on 5 acres located adjacent to the mill, he said.

In 2021, Miller Milling enrolled the facility in the US EPA Energy Star Challenge for Industry, which challenges industrial sites to reduce their energy intensity by 10% within a five-year period from enrolling. The company said it anticipates the Freson site will accomplish this goal by 2024 when the additional solar production is fully operational.  

“This accomplishment will make the Fresno facility the only US-based flour mill to achieve the USEPA Challenge,” the company said. “We are proud that we will be joining many of our baking customers who have already achieved the challenge.

“The use of renewable energy is supportive of a primary sustainability goal of Miller Milling which is to reduce our overall CO₂ emissions. Our targets of 50% reduction of CO₂ emissions (from 2013 baseline) by 2030 and zero emissions by 2050 are aggressive but achievable via projects like this and further investment into renewable energy options.”

Miller Milling said it also is expanding its sustainable efforts to include support of regenerative agriculture in wheat production.

“We will be leveraging partnerships with our suppliers and customers to support farming practices that sustain soil health and reduce the production of CO₂ emissions through agricultural practices,” the company said.

The Fresno facility’s daily flour production capacity is 9,500 cwts, according to Sosland Publishing’s 2023 Grain & Milling Annual. Miller Milling operates five mills in the United States with a combined daily milling capacity of 86,600 cwts, making it the nation’s fifth largest miller, according to the Grain & Milling Annual.