Slaney Flour has turned the sod on its new flour mill in Ireland.

The construction of the new mill marks the "beginning of an important chapter" for Slaney Flour, which is a joint venture between Hemelter Ireland and Ballycarney Grain.

Ireland's newest flour mill in Co. Wexford is expected to have a milling capacity of 300t/day, wheat storage of circa 24,000t, an innovative square silo design, two intake bays and two outloading bays.

The mill will have a production capacity of around 100,000t of grain per year, which will result in about 80,000t of flour.

Ballycarney Grain was established in 2011. It is a grain drying and storage facility owned and operated by farming brothers, Andrew and Raymond Kavanagh.

It manages malting barley from 150 farmers aross the south-east of the country for Diageo Ireland through Boortmalt.

Hemelter Muehle is a family-owned business milling flour in Germany for almost 140 years.

It has been supplying the Irish bakery industry with flour for more than 20 years, currently supplying about 40,000mt per year.

Food security

Ireland imports around 260,000t of flour per year. This flour comes from three key markets: the UK, Germany, and France.

Marc Cordesmeyer, managing director of Hemelter Ireland, said that bringing flour production back to Ireland strengthens the entire bakery supply chain, resulting in less dependence on imports, and significantly less exposure to weather events or geopolitical risks.

He said with the location of the mill near ports, there will be a diverse access to grain.

"We'll be able to import grain from Germany and Poland. We'll have access to Canadian grain.

"But very importantly, we want to support the growing and use of Irish grain.

"We've done, together with the Kavanagh brothers, a number of trials of growing grain here in Ireland which have yielded very promising results of grain that we can use in flour," Cordesmeyer added.

Government reaction

A number of government ministers were in attendance at the event this week and spoke to Agriland about the significance of the development.

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon said: "This is exactly what we want to be doing for our tillage industry.

Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Peter Burke stressed the importance of the bakery sector, with 7,000 employees, 600 "exciting" businesses, and about €1.1 billion in turnover.

He said exports are growing steadily - in 2024, they were worth over €330 million.

"What we're trying to do in Ireland is control the controllables - build up resilience and supply chains, and not to be at the mercy of other economies when you have international shocks," Minister Burke added.

Strong history of flour milling

Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage James Browne, who is a TD for Wexford, said that this project is really important for the area and is a great boost for the tillage sector which is under pressure.

He said: "Wexford has a strong history and heritage in flour milling and it's great to see flour milling coming back.

"We produce so much more food than our population needs and we have a proud tradition of exporting, but we don't produce all of the food types that we need.

"It's great to see the flour milling, which is addressing one of those core issues around food security."