KENYA – The African Milling School (AMS), one of Bühler’s applications and training centers held a colorful graduation together with Buhler’s consumer food business unit’s customer day at the Nairobi campus, on the 8th of September, 2023.
According to Buhler, the two events were done simultaneously to provide an opportunity for aspiring learners, customers, and stakeholders in the sector to speak to and learn from the team about the latest technologies and how they can collaboratively support the food processing sector.
The customer day was held on the sidelines of the African Milling School graduation where very enthusiastic graduands from different nationalities and countries were awarded the milling diploma, donning their graduation sash in pride.
“I really hope that your career in milling is happy and rewarding to you all,” said Pricilla Bakalian, head of training at AMS.
AMS provides milling professionals with state-of-the-art training based on the Swiss vocational system, with a strong emphasis on hands-on training in its school mill and laboratory with a bakery.
The graduation, the seventh cohort since the inception of the school climaxed with a ceremonial planting of a tree, which happens to be the culture of the school at every graduation.
Buhler’s Consumer Food hosts industry majors for a colorful customer day
Buhler highlighted that with the emerging consumer trends, flour mills have a platform to add value to their processed flour.
Bühler offers the complete value chain to help millers and newcomers expand their portfolio with consumer Food, such as wafers, biscuits, baked goods, chocolate, and many more, as well as Extruded products, pasta, and noodles.
“Consumer Food Customer Day celebrates and acknowledges the importance of being Vocal for Local – developing local skills for our customers and using local raw material to develop value-added healthy products” – said Ankit Sharma, Business Development, East Africa
Feeding this growing population sustainably within the boundaries of the planet is a challenge that the government and players in the agro and food sector need to tackle together, Buhler says.
As the keynote speaker of the day, Dr Vimal Shah, a renowned industrialist in East Africa and the Chairman of Bidco Africa delved into the market perspective in Kenya where he explained in depth the importance of making the East African food processing market is competitive.
According to Shah, with the world population is projected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, and the Kenyan population almost hitting 60 million, the Food industry must devise a way to feed this large and dynamic population sustainably.
Shah highlighted that focusing on the East African population is enough to provide food producers with a lucrative market for their businesses but to capture they must remain competitive through the production of quality products and developing local supply chain
Other speakers at the event included representatives from the Kenya Association of Medium Millers, Samuel Musyoka of Mandera Millers Uganda who spoke on the company’s collaboration with Buhler in building what he described as Uganda’s most modern wheat Mill.
The food park concept
At the event, the food park, a concept that aims at establishing direct linkages from the farm to processing to consumer markets stole the show with Buhler stating that they are committed to making it happen in the East African region.
According to Buhler, a food park makes better use of space by optimizing infrastructure, equipment, and resources clustered in one location to meet the needs of future convenient processing.
Buhler’s unique positioning as a power level for a better world through integrated solutions for sustainable value chains said that they already have plants utilizing food parks in many parts of Africa.
Buhler highlighted that with the emerging consumer trends, flour mills have a platform to add value to their processed flour.
Pricilla Bakalian, head of training AMS revealed how Buhler is making strides towards providing sustainable and food-safe solutions through circular manufacturing.
According to her, Buhler is committed to ensuring that nothing goes to waste during the manufacturing process as well as ensuring a significant amount of energy and reduced carbon emissions.
Buhler stated that they have, however, been able to remain relevant in the industry following their technical offering in providing “local skills for local needs”.
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