SAGINAW, TEXAS, US — It isn’t often that a flour mill undergoes two 10,000-cwt milling capacity expansions in a span of six years, but soaring customer growth has led Miller Milling Co. to more than double its processing capabilities since 2019 at its mill in Saginaw, Texas, US.
The huge growth in population in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and in Texas in general, has led to soaring demand for flour-based food products. To meet customer demand, Miller Milling built a 10,000-cwt C mill in 2019 and recently launched a D mill of that same capacity, bringing the plant’s overall flour production capacity to 34,000 cwts per day, making it the third largest milling facility by capacity in the United States.
With the addition of the D mill, Miller Milling is now the fourth largest milling company in North America at 100,500 cwts of daily production capacity, passing Bay State Milling Co., according to Sosland Publishing Co.’s 2025 Grain & Milling Annual.
Miller Milling, a subsidiary of Japan-based Nisshin Flour Milling, also recently completed construction of an Innovation and Technical Center (ITC) on its Saginaw campus. The center will serve all five of Miller Milling’s mills in the United States, providing testing and analysis of baking processes from grain to baked foods across a wide range of flours.
“This marks a significant milestone in our journey,” Joe Girdner, chief executive officer of Miller Milling, told more than 100 invited guests at the grand opening of the D mill and ITC on April 2. “As we embark on this new chapter, we are confident the D mill and Innovation and Technical Center will set new standards for the industry.”
Having two major construction projects taking place simultaneously on the same property was challenging, said Luke Weinheimer, director of enginnering at Miller Milling.
“There were weather delays, some days there would be parking issues with 130 contractors on site, and it was challenging to limit disruptions to our operations,” he said. “The challenge to our partners and teams was to execute these projects simultaneously while eliminating any interruptions to customers and to continue to supply a high-quality, safe food product to our customers. And I’m happy to say we did not have any product impacted for our customers during the installation of the D mill.”
Miller Milling’s decision to proceed with two large expansion projects in a six-year period at the Saginaw plant primarily was based on census data. Texas ranks second only to Florida in population growth over the past five years, growing by nearly 2% during that time, and ranks second in overall population at more than 30 million people. And among US cities, Dallas, which is Miller Milling’s primary market, ranks eighth in population growth over the past five years at 17%. Its secondary markets — Houston and San Antonio — rank fifth and seventh with growth rates of 18% and 17%.
Miller Milling, which has three plants in California (Los Angeles, Oakland and Fresno) and another in Winchester, Virginia, said expanding the Saginaw mill made the most sense.
“I lived in California and in recent years there have been a lot of people moving from there to Texas,” said Rob Gusman, Miller Milling’s director of sales. “Also, from a business standpoint, Texas is significantly more manufacturing friendly. We have received great support from the city of Saginaw and so it makes more sense for us to grow in this expanding market.”
The expansion did not involve adding square footage to the mill. Anticipating the sharp increase in population, Miller Milling constructed the C mill with enough space to add significant production capacity within the existing structure.
With the nation’s second largest Hispanic population, Texas has seen demand for tortilla flour rise significantly, and Miller Milling has positioned itself to meet that demand with its recent expansions.
“Tortilla flour has been a big mover for us,” Gusman said.
| Credit: ©JULIAN & LAMBERT
Inside the D mill
Miller Milling produces several different grades of flour, including straight grade flour and premium noodle flour with varying protein levels, depending on customer specifications, at its Saginaw mill. As it has during its other expansions on this site, Miller Milling turned to Bühler Inc., Plymouth, Minnesota, US, for most of the supply and installation of equipment. Swisca, Appenzell, Switzerland, supplied dosing scales while Bulk Conveyors, Inc., Wichita, Kansas, US, installed conveyors.
The Saginaw mill’s wheat storage situation is unique in that it does not own its own wheat storage bins. Instead, it leases 7 million bushels of storage from Viterra’s mammoth grain storage complex located south of the Miller Milling plant. Grain storage capacity at the Viterra facility is more than 17 million bushels.
“Viterra gives us a high amount of wheat storage,” said Kyle Shermock, vice president, supply chain and corporate planning, Miller Milling. “A certainty of supply is one of the things we pride ourselves on with our customers. It kind of goes back to our mantra of ‘providing excellent customer service in everything we do.’ Our wheat storage situation is one of the great competitive advantages that we have.”
The Saginaw mill sources most of its wheat from Texas farms, although it reaches as far north as Kansas for its hard winter wheat supply and brings in some hard spring wheat from North Dakota and Minnesota. The mill processes mostly hard wheat, but its B mill, which serves as a swing mill, grinds soft wheat as well.
“Soft wheat is about 10% of our total grind,” Shermock said. “Typically, it is locally produced, but occasionally there have been issues where we had to bring it in from other regions.
“The last couple of years there have been quality and weather issues here, so we had to go outside of Texas for some of the soft wheat.”
All the equipment installed in the D mill is described as “latest generation technology.”
“There is more automation in the system,” Shermock said. “Even our feed loadout system is now automated where the driver can scale himself out without much interaction with our staff.”
Wheat comes into the D mill from 12 Viterra storage silos to the cleaning house, which features equipment supplied by Bühler, including separators, aspirators, scourers, destoners and color sorters. Once clean, the wheat is tempered for 12 to 16 hours to aid in flour extraction during the milling process.
From there, the wheat moves into the milling section where it passes through Bühler rollstands, including several double high rollers. The product then passes through Bühler purifiers and sifters, including a rebolt sifter before reaching bulk storage. Stainless steel spouting was installed throughout the mill as part of Miller Milling’s effort to ensure a sanitary product.
| Credit: ©JULIAN & LAMBERT
About 60% of the flour produced at the Saginaw plant is shipped in bulk by truck while 40% is bagged. Bags are stored in a 25,000-square-foot warehouse that was built when the C mill was constructed in 2019.
With the milling capacity increase, the Saginaw plant will be able to produce more than 10,000 tons of millfeed per month, Shermock said.
Texas is the United States’ leading cattle producer with more than 4 million head, comprising 15% of the nation’s total, so millfeed is an especially important byproduct for Miller Milling at its Saginaw plant.
Increasing its millfeed storage capacity was also part of the expansion project, as Todd & Sargent of Ames, Iowa, US, erected a slipform concrete silo that can hold up to 450 tons of millfeed.
ITC a ‘game changer’
The erection of the state-of-the-art ITC building was every bit as important as the milling capacity expansion, as it will serve both customers and the entire Miller Milling network, said Weinheimer.
“The ITC is a dream become reality,” he said. “This was discussed when I first came on board with Miller Milling five years ago. The discussion got more in-depth, and we decided to go forward with building a place where our customers can come, and we can build that partnership for the future.”
The two-story ITC, located just south of the mill, includes a small-scale mill that can replicate grain processing of the company’s mills throughout North America and full bakery that will greatly enhance the company’s customer offerings.
The first floor of the building features rheology equipment, a grain analytics area, a bake lab section, chem room, and training room. The second floor has 10 dedicated office spaces, two conference rooms, as well as reception and collaboration areas. Although it is located next to a busy railroad line, soundproof windows keep train noises to a minimum. Window-glazing technology is also utilized throughout the building and allows for privacy in conference rooms and other offices.
Customers can obtain expert advice and insight into product development through in-house testing and opportunities for production improvements.
“This is a great place to show off our technology,” Gusman said. “It is centered on customer intimacy and taking customer partnerships really deep. It gives us the ability to collaborate in the early stages, not only regarding flour and wheat quality but R&D formulation for product development.
“We can literally work side by side with our customers. If they don’t have the space and equipment, we’ve got the team, knowledge, equipment and space to work alongside them.”
Gusman noted that there will still be a quality lab within the mill doing regular checks of outgoing flour and regular analytics such as Falling Number, moisture and ash, etc., and the ITC will provide another quality check on all finished products.
“When we say we want to be the leader in flour quality, we have to invest in that,” Shermock said. “It is part of our investment strategy.”
The ITC not only benefits customers, it plays an important role in maintaining quality standards at Nisshin’s other Miller Milling and Rogers Foods flour mills in North America, Gusman said.
“We will do analytics to standardize testing throughout our milling network,” he said.
He said the company’s new crop sampling program will give Miller Milling the advantage of quickly pinpointing pockets of higher quality wheat throughout the country.
“During new crop harvest, every milling company in the world is trying to get wheat samples tested and get the analytics back so they can make the best buying decisions about where they want to source their wheat,” he said. “Before, we had to get in line with everyone else and wait to get the wheat analyzed (by a third party). Now we’re able to do it in-house and get the results faster. It’s a game changer for us.”
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