The process of flour milling dates back to Egyptian and earlier times. Primitive people ground wheat by using stones to pound the grain and release the edible seeds from their hulls.
The Romans were no longer satisfied with this: in order to supply the growing urban population with flour they ground the corn on core mills. The first mill was developed in 300 BC. The milestone were first hand operated, then driven by animals and finally driven by waterpower.
And around 25 BC the architect and engineer Vitruvius described a water mill in which a paddle-wheel turned the millstones by way of a gearwheel.
This invention of the ancient world was used again by the millers of the Middle Ages, but in the twelfth century a new construction reached the European continent: the windmill, that probably originated in the Orient.
It is not known whether the Crusaders brought the invention home with them from the Arabian world. All we can say for certain is that windmills were already turning in far-off England around the year 1150.
Wind flour mills together with the water driven flourmills, remained active until the late 19th century.
The advent of steam power greatly improved the efficiency of flour mills. In 1786, two 37-kW steam engines were connected to drive 20 stone mills at the Albion grain mill in London and for the next hundred years, grain was ground mainly in steam driven querns.
In the late 1800s, a revolution occurred with the rapid introduction and adoption of roller milling technology.
The timing and success of this transformation are attributable to an intricate combination of agriculture, social and technological circumstance occurring principally across countries, Hungary, America and Britain.
Flour milling was revolutionized in America by the introduction from France and Hungary of the new process for milling.
In 2001 a handful of companies including General Mills and Nabisco, controlled the vast majority of American flour milling.
The History of Flour Milling
