Miller Magazine Issue: 123 March 2020

17 NEWS MILLER / MARCH 2020 cordance with the state planning. The industry reached its peak at the end of the 1990s, and during this period undoubtedly the Russian Federation occupied one of the leading positions in the world both in terms of the level of technical equipment and flour milling volume. However, the political changes in the country that oc- curred in the early 90s affected all spheres of public life without exception to the milling industry. With the onset of the market economy, the trend of consolidation of sta- te flour mills changed to the exact opposite - there was an explosive increase in the number of flour mills (mainly small ones, with a capacity of up to 20 tons per day) with a simultaneous reduction in the number of industrial en- terprises. At the same time, the number of industrial mills decreased to 285, and their share in the total production of flour by 60%. A more cost-effective approach to the system of pro- duction and distribution of products, the desire to reduce logistics costs during the transportation of raw materials and finished products led to the redistribution of produc- tion capacities within the country. Also, in addition to the desire to reduce the cost of the production process, chan- ges in the structure of grain export and import played a role in this. Thus, flour production began to focus closer to the areas in which marketable grain is produced. This ultimately led to the fact that the leaders in the production of flour were not the largest megalopolises in Russia, but remote regions with grain-grinding standards nearby and, at the same time, located quite far from the ports being deprived of the opportunity to develop exports. In additi- on, flour mills located near such large ports as the Baltic, White Sea (Barents Sea), and the Pacific Ocean through which imported grain coming in USSR during the Soviet period lost their importance and economic feasibility. Simultaneously, with the reduction of industrial flour mil- ling in remote regions and large megacities, road transport of flour was developed over considerable distances (up to 500-600 km), including bulk delivery by heavy-duty flour vehicles. For large enterprises, it became economically ne- cessary to create their own fleet of such special vehicles. Volumes freed up due to the reduction in industrial pro- duction are filled with products produced by low power mills. Many of these industries are vertically integrated and are either part of the structure of grain producers or