LOWELL, MICHIGAN, US — One of the reasons King Milling Co. has operated successfully for 134 years is a consistent commitment to invest a significant portion of its profits back into the business, whether its purchasing the latest technology or adding production capacity.
Its latest investment was celebrated on April 10 when the family-owned company opened a new 8,000-cwt mill, the fourth milling unit at its complex in Lowell, Michigan, US. The ribbon-cutting ceremony was attended by state and local politicians, as well as King Milling customers and suppliers.
“King Milling is proud to continue a century-plus tradition of providing premium flours to some of our country’s most popular consumer brands and restaurant chains,” Brian Doyle, chairman, told the gathering. “Fueled by strong customer demand, this expansion is the largest single investment we have made — and we are grateful for the State of Michigan and City of Lowell for their partnership in this expansion project.”
Speaking to World Grain after the ceremony, King Milling executives Brian Doyle, his cousin Jim Doyle and Brian’s oldest son, Patrick Doyle, representing the fourth and fifth generations of family leadership, said the rationale for adding a fourth milling line was simple: demand for the company’s flour was growing faster than its ability to produce it.
“We were running 24-7 and we had customers who were wanting to make additions to their plants and companies that were not our customers interested in becoming our customers,” said Jim Doyle, president of King Milling. “We had to say no too many times because we did not have the capacity. We finally said, ‘We’re either going to sit still and die or go ahead with this.’ If you’re going to stay in business, you have to take some risks.”
The risk, in this case, involved spending $47 million on a new D mill, which stands six stories tall and covers 35,000 square feet. By far the most the company has spent on such a project, King Milling fell victim to the soaring inflation rates that are plaguing virtually every industry worldwide.
“We priced out a bigger building for $32 million nine months before we signed the contract, but then the price of steel soared during that time,” said Brian Doyle, chairman of King Milling.
As a result, $15 million was added to the price tag, and instead of a 10,000-cwt mill it was scaled back to 7,500 cwts to prevent the cost from soaring past $50 million. Although initially rated at 7,500 cwts, the mill actually produces 8,000 cwts.
“We’re getting an extra 500 cwts more than we expected,” Jim Doyle said.
Wide range of flours
With the addition of the D mill, which is entirely dedicated to the production of hard wheat flour, King Milling’s total daily flour production capacity is now 25,000 cwts. The company’s A mill is a swing mill, producing hard wheat and soft wheat flour; the B mill produces hard wheat patent flour; and a C mill produces whole wheat flour.
The company mills soft red, soft white, hard red winter and hard red spring wheats, either individually or blended, and produces varieties of white flour, whole wheat flour and wheat bran as well as its Super Kleaned Wheat and Ceres products.
King Milling’s Ceres line features wheat processed through a proprietary process developed in the 1960s that deactivates enzymes for a longer shelf life. While most of King Milling’s flour is delivered in bulk to food processors, consumers can buy a few of the company’s branded flours at Gordon Food Service Stores, Heffron Farm Markets in Grand Rapids and Red Barn Market in Lowell.
Already the largest flour mill in the state, King Milling’s Lowell complex now accounts for about half of Michigan’s flour milling capacity, based on data in the 2024 Grain & Milling Annual, published by Sosland Publishing Co. Capacity at the D mill, which was built with future expansion in mind, could reach 10,000 cwts if the company desires, Brian Doyle said.
The project also expanded King Milling’s grain storage capacity as several slipform concrete wheat storage bins were installed next to the mill. The bins add 120,000 bushels of wheat storage capacity to the complex, increasing the overall total to 3.72 million bushels.
Part of the King Milling executive team are, from left, Patrick Doyle, executive vice president; Brian Doyle, chairman; and Jim Doyle, president.
|Right on schedule
Construction of the mill began in 2022 and was completed in December 2023, with Todd & Sargent, Ames, Iowa, US, serving as the general contractor. As construction projects go, this one went remarkably smoothly, said Brian Doyle, noting that all construction and installation deadlines were met.
“The plan, which was written up a year-and-a-half in advance, listed Dec. 15, 2023, as the day operations would begin,” Brian Doyle said. “We reached Dec. 15 and began milling flour that day, and we were making spec (specification) flour within a day or two.”
That is unusual as most new flour mills require a few weeks of fine tuning before they are operating at maximum efficiency. Jim Doyle said ramping up full-scale production so quickly “was remarkable.” He credited brother Steve Doyle, senior vice president, and Brian’s younger son, Regan Doyle, vice president of operations, for working closely with Bühler, Kice and the other suppliers to make sure all the necessary preparations and tests were performed prior to starting the mill.
“I think it says a lot about the technology,” Jim Doyle said. “It says a lot about Kice and their automation and electronics. We preplanned and pretested everything. Over time they’ve learned a lot about what we need to do on the testing side, so when we get to the startup phase it’s much shorter and smoother.”
Brian Doyle said a Safe Quality Food (SQF) audit of all four milling units was conducted two weeks after the commissioning of the new mill. The company received high marks, and he credited all King Milling employees for contributing to that achievement.
“We have a highly engaged team that remained focused on what matters throughout the entire process,” Brian Doyle said. “Thanks to their efforts we received an SQF score of 99 out of 100 less than a month after beginning commissioning.”
SLIDESHOW: King Milling celebrates mill expansion
Mill features
Most of the cleaning house and milling equipment was supplied by Bühler, Inc., Plymouth, Minnesota, US, while the automation systems were installed by Kice Industries, Wichita, Kansas, US. Both have worked with King Milling for many decades on various milling construction projects.
GSI legs and drag conveyors, which included Kice point-of-use vent filters, transport wheat into the mill’s cleaning house. The flow of material is controlled by slide gates manufactured by Salina Vortex, Salina, Kansas, US. Once inside the mill, the wheat passes through Industrial Magnetics magnets and then through wheat cleaning equipment supplied by Bühler, including a Vega compact grain cleaner, an aspirator, scourer and destoner, as well as a Sortex color sorter.
When the cleaned wheat arrives at the milling section, it passes through Bühler double and single high roller mills, detachers, purifiers and sifters. The blowers and pumps in the D mill were supplied by Blower Engineering, Liberty, North Carolina, US.
Bühler scales are used for weighing all wheat and finished products and the microingredient feeders were also supplied by Bühler.
“The Bühler Engineering, installation and startup team did an excellent job working with everyone on the project is to be commended for their work and expertise,” Steve Doyle said.
One of the most interesting features of the new mill, which King Milling describes as “the country’s most modern flour mill,” is its cutting-edge energy-efficient design. The fully insulated building uses all LED lighting, premium-efficient motors and a heat recovery system in which process heat is used to preheat intake air. This sustainable design reduces fossil fuel use when operating in colder temperatures.
“No pneumatic air is being fed back into the plant anymore,” Jim Doyle said. “With this pneumatic system, the air is going out in both the summer and winter months. During the cold months, the outgoing air is preheating all the incoming air.
“The building is fully insulated on the outside. We have not done that before. It helps eliminate condensation. In fact, it is so insulated that we probably are not going to need any external heat. The incoming air can run through a heating coil. But probably only on the very coldest day will we even need heat derived from fossil fuels.”
A Kice fast loadout discharge system was installed on the bottom of eight flour loadout bins. It’s the same flour loadout system that King Milling has used in its other mills for the past 40 years. Brian Doyle noted that the unique bin bottoms were custom-designed by Kice in the mid-1980s to include certain features that King Milling requested.
“We still use the same bin bottoms today that we did back then because they work,” Brian Doyle said.
Since its last mill expansion in 2014, King Milling added two 400,000-bushel GSI steel grain bins and upgraded the grain dryers and wheat handling equipment in 2017, and a massive 30,000-square-foot warehouse was completed in 2019 to house an automated packing system for its 25- and 50-pound bags as well as 2,000-pound supersacks.
As for future expansion, the company is about out of options in its land-locked space in Lowell. But it owns 52 acres of land about 8 miles south of the city and is also open to the idea of expanding outside the Grand Rapids area. While the precise details of future expansion are unclear, the Doyles said they will be unwavering in their commitment to maintaining the company’s legacy of investing to remain current and to better serve its customers.
“The hallmark of the company’s past as well as its future is to reinvest in the business,” Jim Doyle said. “It’s a capital-intensive business, and it takes money to keep this going.”
