Woman’s Post In U.S. Milling Firm

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29956, 18 October 1962, Page 16

Woman’s Post In U.S. Milling Firm

A woman , who is vice-pre-sident and director of research for an American flour milling company with 10 mills in several States is visiting Christchurch. She is Dr. Betty Sullivan, a distinguished cereal chemist who has published more than 40 scientific papers and is a past president of the American Association of Cereal Chpmists Dr. Sullivan has come to New Zealand after attending the twelfth annual conference of the cereal chemistry group of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute at Canberra, where she was the principal speaker. Dr. Sullivan said that the trend to mergers and amalgamations had been as marked in the flourmilling industry as in other fields in the United States. In some respects she said, she felt this was unfortunate in that the bigger organisations had to be conducted like military machines with narrow individual responsibilities so that they offered less scope for individualism and initiative. However in the final analysis, she believed the consume: benefited in lower prices out of the intense competition between the big organisations.

pany's mills was now producing more than 50 different types of flour. Dr. Sullivan’s laboratory has dope pioneer work on a new milling process involving what is known as impact grinding and. air classification. which separates the protein and other parts of the wheat. While making possible production of a stronger flour, Dr. Sullivan said, it also necessitated the development of outlets for other parts of the separation process.

While the process enabled rather less reliance to be placed on the wheat. Dr. Sullivan emphasised that quality was still a factor of major importance to ensure good bread.

One of the most important .developments in the baking field in the United States, according to Dr. Sullivan, is the growing demand for what she terms "convenience foods" through cake mixes and refrigerated doughs now being produced by the bakeries of super markets and food firms. A great deal of flour was being used for these products, she said. Dr. Sullivan said the controlled system under which the wheat growing, milling and baking industry operated in New Zealand was foreign to her and she failed to see how there could be any place in it for incentive to improve things Same Direction In some respects, however, her own country was moving in this direction with its high support price for wheat. The trouble was that once these systems were initiated it was hard to to give them up. Even with land being taken out of production the plan! breeders had done such a good job that as big a crop was still being produced off toe reduced acreage. Her feeling was that if the law of supply and demand operated it would be in the best interests of both the consumer and the intelligent farmer, provided that the farmer had insurance against hazards like a hail storm destroying his crops.

With high labour costs in America and the labour element in the milling industry greatest at the packing and unloading stage. Dr. Sullivan said there had been developments in mills in bulk handling and loading of flour. The trend in America was now for flour, sugar and oils to be transported m bulk, and flour was carried in bulk in railway waggons holding as much as 100.0001 b, and also in motor vehicles to serve bakeries which did not have rai' sidings. Narrow Margins With milling companies operating on a lower margin of profit in proportion to capital than most other industries, this was a phase of production where savings could be made, but it was governed to some degree by the ever-expanding demands of customers. One of her com-