WITTENBURG, GERMANY — The global flour industry celebrated the third World Flour Day on March 20 with shared baking activities in recognition of all the staple food has contributed to health and well-being around the world.

Under the motto “Flour and People,” this year the FlourWorld Museum, which initiated World Flour Day in 2020, collected stories about the meaning of flour for each individual.

Innovation, tradition, connectedness, prosperity, strength, joy, life. Those are just some of the answers that members of the worldwide gave to the question, “What does flour mean for us?” A wide range of personal stories came in from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Near East and many other regions.

“We were overwhelmed by the participation in this year’s World Flour Day,” said Carsten Blum, the idea-giver and originator of the commemorative day. “We received many moving and inspiring stories. People around the globe shared with us their personal links to flour. All these stories show the multifaceted and individual significance of flour for each person.”

In many mills and companies that use flour, employees came together to honor this staple food with joint baking activities.

The FlourWorld Museum created a dedicated flour sack with special artwork that represents the motto “Flour and People.” It shows three children baking together.

“This special sack stands for flour and people, variety, internationality, family and the interconnectedness of all people through flour,” Blum said.

The sack has a place of honor in the FlourWorld Museum. This museum in Wittenburg near Hamburg, Germany, holds the world’s largest collection of flour sacks, with more than 3,700 sacks from 140 countries. Under the motto Flour.Power.Life the FlourWorld Museum tells of the traditions, history and myths of flour.

“A special highlight of this year’s World Flour Day was the large amount of flour donations we received from our customers for a charitable project in Uganda,” said Maximiliane Schneider, sales manager East Africa at Mühlenchemie.

On her initiative the FlourWorld Museum and Mühlenchemie collected several hundred kilograms of flour for the “Girls’ Club” charity project by the Butiru Friends Circle in Uganda. The initiative started in 2021 and invites girls from Butiru and surrounding villages to a Girls’ Club three afternoons a week. The project has been so popular that Girls’ Clubs are now offered in other locations. The goal of the initiative is financial independence, the strengthening of the community and the autonomy of women. The girls also learn to determine their profit and handle money.

The donations help the organization to run baking and cooking courses so that the girls and women can set up their own small bakery stall.

“We’re very glad to be able to help in this way, because to us flour also means helping the community,” Schneider said.