WITTENBURG, GERMANY — World Flour Day, held March 20 each year, is a symbolic day of recognition and appreciation for millers’ wide-ranging dedication. The “Giving Day” initiative celebrates the fundamental importance of flour as a staple food and symbol of life, while underlining the social responsibility of the milling community. 

During this year’s celebration at the FlourWorld Museum in Wittenburg, millers from countries including Ecuador, Germany, Turkey, Greece and Jordan emphasized the important role the milling industry plays in nutrition while simultaneously providing tangible help where needed most. The activities that were presented showed the wide-ranging potential of the industry to bring about positive change and ranged from donations of flour and food to needy communities, to educational programs and sustainability initiatives.

Moderna Alimentos, one of the largest millers in Ecuador, donated more than 282 tonnes of food products to various foundations like Banco de Alimentos Quito und Fundación Jonathan in 2023, benefiting a total of 106,398 needy people. To date in 2024, the company has supplied almost 29 tonnes of product, reaching over 20,000 people.

Germany-based GoodMills Deutschland doubled the donation by MC Mühlenchemie of flour to the Ahrensburg Tafel, enabling the production of some 4,000 bread rolls. This effort enabled a significant expansion of the Tafel’s support for socially disadvantaged families, pensioners, refugees and unemployed persons in the area.

Flourmills Thrakis I. Ouzounopoulos SA, a milling company in Greece, supplies local farmers with selected seed in cooperation with Department of Agricultural Development of the Democritus University of Thrace, and in return receives dependable amounts of high-quality soft wheat. This program not only supports the local economy by creating more stable sources of income for the farming community, but also rejuvenates the antique breadbasket of Thrace by bringing back local wheat production. In doing this, the company has introduced a contract farming program to Greece for the first time.

With the “Bread Loaf” campaign, Jordan’s South Amman Flour Mill (SAFM) helps to strengthen communities, working with the charity organization Takaful to provide bread to needy families. SAFM is the largest miller in Jordan and part of the Al-Hazaa Investment Group, whose primary goal is to contribute to the stability of nutrition security and sustainability in the region. The campaign aims to cover the nutritional needs of poor families by providing daily coupons for bread from local bakeries.

For World Flour Day 2024, Stern Ingredients Turkey started a special donation campaign. The company donated pasta to the Darüşşafaka society, which for years has worked to enable orphans to get an advanced education. The relationship came about for quite personal reasons, as the father of Cenk Engin, operations manager at Stern Ingredients Turkey, was formerly a student of Darüşşafaka and experienced how it made a positive difference in his life. The pasta is produced by OBA MAKARNA, Turkey’s largest pasta exporter, which already supplied pasta for a donation by Stern Ingredients Turkey after the devastating earthquake in the southeastern part of the country.

The details and stories of the individual projects may be found on the official website (www.worldflourday.com).

The FlourWorld Museum in Wittenburg near Hamburg, Germany, holds the world’s largest collection of flour sacks, with over 3,900 sacks from 150 countries. Flour.Power.Life is the unifying idea under which the sacks portray the traditions, history and myths of flour. The museum and World Flour Day are dedicated to flour and the millers of the world, who supply humanity with flour every day.