Almost all the junk foods we eat these days are made from flour; Cake, Burger, Pizza, Doughnut, name them, are all made from flour. There are different types of flours and each of type of flour is dependent on the raw material used to produce the flour.
For instance, wheat flour is made from wheat, corn flour is made from corn/maize; then there are others like rice flour, cocoyam flour and yam flour and my guess is that you know the raw materials each of these types of flour are made from.
Starting a flour company is a very profitable business that can break even after a few years due to the high demand for flour by companies that use flour as raw material to produce other finished products. The main end users of flour products are bakeries for production for bread and related pastries, pharmaceutical companies, and food processing companies, private individuals that engage in small pastry baking business.
In this article, I will give hints of why you can start a flour producing company and how to start your own flour producing company.
3 Reasons to Open a Flour Production Company
High Demand-: I have explained this point earlier on this article that one of the reasons to open a flour producing company is because there is a high demand for flour by pastry making companies and other food processing companies.
Raw Materials Readily Available-: The raw materials needed in the production of flour are readily available and cheap to get. For instance, if your company makes corn flour, the only major raw material you need is corn which is easy to source for from farmers.
You can focus in the production of more than one type of flour since the whole processes are almost the same. For instance, your company can produce both wheat flour, corn flour and millet flour if you have source for getting bulk quantity of wheat, corn and millet.
Easy Loan for Expansion-: You can easily get loan from a bank or other financial institutions for the expansion of your company. Since flour is a high demand and fast moving product, most banks will not hesitate to facilitate a loan to expand your company since they know you can pay back the loan with the interest.
Starting a Flour Production Company – Sample Business Plan
1. Training on How to Handle the Machineries for Production-: Unless you have worked in a flour mill before now, you need to get the basic training on how to handle the machineries used in the grinding and further production of the raw materials into finished flour. You also need to know other ingredients that are added to get the final result.
2. Register Your Business as a Company-: You may not start out as a massive flour mill, but you have a dream of expanding the company to a flour mill one day, so you need to register your business as a company; preferably a limited liability company.
This also gives you the privilege to patent any new flour product you invent to your company’s name.
3. Lease a Space for Your Factory-: When you are done with the formal registration, you have to look for a space to buy or rent as your factory complex.
A basic flour mill doesn’t require much space to get started.
You need mainly a place to keep the raw materials, a space for your machineries, a space to keep the processed flour for packaging, and the space for the final packaging of the flour.
The location of the factory should be easily accessible for easy transport of raw material into the site and easy shipping out of packaged flour to customers.
4. Purchase Equipments and Materials-: Once you get the space for the factory, it’s time to buy the equipments and machineries you will need for production. Part of the need for going for training is to know which equipments are vital for the product of flour and how to use each of them.
You can also lease machineries if the company is running on a very tight budget, but endeavor to purchase your own set ones you make enough money.
5. Source for Raw Materials-: It is time to scout for raw materials you need for production.
As I mentioned above, the raw material you will need depends on the type of flour you are producing.
A good place to source for raw materials is from farmers that cultivate the raw materials in commercial quantities. If you have the extra expanse of land, you may decide to cultivate your own raw material which may be cheaper but more stressful with the whole cultivation, nurturing, waiting to mature and finally harvesting processes. So it is much better to purchase from farmers.
6. Find Customers for Your Products-: At this stage, I assume that the first set of flour production has been done and packaged; so you have to look for buyers for the finished product.
A good way to do this is to get a list of bakeries, food processing companies and pharmaceutical companies near your location; write a proposal to them that you have a flour company that can supply them with any quantity of flour they require.
Also include a small sample of the flour you made to them for them to see the product you have and finally, let them know that you can produce other types of flour on order (if you have the equipment to produce various types of flour).
This is all you need to know about starting a flour production mill.
Please note that you need to get certification from the organization responsible for checking the quality of food products in your location, as it will help to increase the authenticity of your product to your customers.
Also, remember that the packaging process includes using a bag or sack that is branded with your company’s name and logo to package your flour; as this helps to advertise your products to anybody that comes in contact it.
