Miller Magazine Issue: 124 April 2020

19 NEWS MILLER / APRIL 2020 ted a 20% to 30% rise in orders, reflecting both precautio- nary purchases by customers as well as the knock-on effect on the animal feed market after consumers started buying more meat, he said. French supermarket sales of pasta, flour and rice were worth nearly three times the amount sold in the same peri- od last year, market research firm Nielsen estimates. French pasta makers have boosted output by about half to respond to the surge in demand for the durum wheat staple, accor- ding to industry association SIFPAF. Grain group Soufflet also said demand from traditional bakeries for its flour more than doubled as France moved towards a lockdown in which food stores were among the few outlets to stay open. TURKISH FLOUR MILLERS INCREASE THEIR CAPACITY Demand for flour in Europe has increased tremendously since the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic, said the director of the International Association of Operative Millers (IAOM) Eurasia. While cafes and pubs have been closed to stem the spread of the virus, bakeries are doing brisk business and bread sales have increased, Eren Gunhan Ulusoy told Anadolu Agency. Ulusoy, who is also head of the Turkish Flour Industrialists' Federation (TFIF), noted that some countries, in which in- dustries generally operate at full capacity already, will see problems in production due to manpower, logistics and hy- giene standards due to the outbreak. But “in our country, the capacity utilization rate is at 50%. In other words, we can produce twice the total flour consumption of Turkey". He said that even if it takes months to control the pandemic, the flour sector in Turkey will continue production without any problems. Touching on flour consumption in Turkey, he said annual consumption is 160 kilograms per person and the country is one of the largest flour consumers in the world. In the Tur- kish flour sector, 82% of the flour is used by bakeries, while individuals consume only 5% of the total flour in Turkey, he said. The sector increased its capacity to meet rising domes- tic flour demand after the virus outbreak. "Our flour industry continues production without interruption to prevent a dis- ruption in flour supply," he added. As the world's largest flour exporting country, Turkey sold $1.05 billion worth of flour last year. AMERICAN FLOUR MILLERS PRODUCE MORE RETAIL VOLUME The global pandemic has also resulted in an unpreceden- ted demand for flour in the USA. North American flour mills and bakeries are rushing to boost production as the spread of the new coronavirus leads to stockpiling of staples like bread and pasta. American flour milling companies are ad- justing their production runs to produce more retail volume. “We have plenty of wheat; the world is sitting on surplus vo- lumes of wheat. It isn't an issue of not enough wheat and not enough flour. We have milling capacity and we have wheat. It's a question of the hoarding and buying behavior we're seeing.” said Tim O’Connor, the head of the Wheat Foods Council says. O'Connor noted there's no way to predict what demand might look like in the future. He expects the trend may last several more weeks, or longer, as COVID-19 cases hit a peak. CANADA Gordon Harrison, the president of the Canadian Natio- nal Millers Association, said the recent surge in retail flour demand has exceeded levels usually seen in the traditional peak season from late August through Christmas. However, he noted Canada has an "abundant supply" of milling-quality wheat, oats and other products, and his members are wor- king hard to meet the demand. "There is no real need to go out and buy 10 bags of flour and we have no indication that there'll be a shortage either in the near term or longer-term," he said. "The milling industry is running well nationally." PHILIPPINES In the Philippines, local wheat flour millers have been pro- viding bread to Covid19 frontliners in hospitals and military and police forces manning the checkpoints in various locati- ons. Flour millers and other food manufacturers assured the public of stable supply of commodities amid the enhanced quarantine period in the country. The Philippines has 22 flour mills scattered all over the country producing 83 million bags of flour annually. “The Philippine Association of Flour Millers assures the ge- neral public that the country has enough inventory of flour and that this commodity continues to be delivered to bake- ries, food manufacturers, noodle makers, and flour dealers and retailers,” PAFMIL executive director Ricardo Pinca said. Brazilian mills push to scrap wheat import tariffs amid pandemic Brazilian mills are turning to wheat suppliers out- side of Argentina as they seek to avoid shortages during the coronavirus pandemic, Rubens Barbosa, president of milling group Abitrigo, told Reuters. Brazil, which relies on imports for 60% of do- mestic wheat consumption, is pressing the gover- nment to lift sanitary restrictions on Russian wheat and temporarily drop a 10% import tariff on wheat from outside the South American trade bloc Mer- cosur, including Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. “According to the Argentines, there will be wheat available to export to Brazil,” Barbosa said. “But the industry thinks supplies are tight and depending on Argentina’s policies, there could be a lack of Argen- tine wheat for Brazil.” Mayors of dozens of towns near the Rosario gra- ins export hub have blocked ground transport as the country locks down against the coronavirus pande- mic. The Abitrigo executive said the plan is to coun- ter potential trade and logistics disruptions by impor- ting more wheat from other countries. Lowering or scrapping import duties on those imports would help to make that more affordable, he said. REUTERS COVID-19 ımpact on graın and mıllıng ındustry