In the heart of southern Alberta’s durum country is a milling company with a history that stretches back 100 years.
Located in Lethbridge, Ellison Milling Co. began in 1906 as a family-owned and operated business. The Canadian grain company Parrish and Heimbecker bought Ellison in 1975, but the mill continues as part of a processing chain.
Among many grain-products, the company buys southern Alberta producers’ durum and transforms it into semolina, the main ingredient from which pasta is made.
“We’re one step in a very important chain that takes a raw material off the farm and processes it into safe and nutritional food product,” said Michael Greer, general manager of the mill.
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Most of Ellison’s clients are in Western Canada and the northwestern United States, said Greer.
“I would suggest that Canadian (durum) wheat is the best in the world,” he said.
To get the durum from farmer’s bins to P&H’s mill, the company charges producers a transport premium and contracts the freight to a local trucking company.
Located in Raymond, R.K. Heggie Grain Ltd. has two or three trucks hauling year-round to the Ellison mill from various parts of southern Alberta.
Durum is loaded from farms ranging from Calgary, east to Medicine Hat and south to the Milk River area, said Dallas Sherwood, manager of the 45-year-old trucking business.
Like any business, trucking comes with financial challenges.
Expenses have increased considerably over the past few years, but freight rates have remained constant, Sherwood said.
Thirty-five to 45 percent of the business costs go to fuel. Add to that vehicle replacement costs, insurance, maintenance and wages. Once you break it all down, “there’s not a lot of margin left,” Sherwood said.
Once durum is delivered, the mill transforms it into semolina.
Broadly speaking, the durum goes through three stages: cleaning, tempering and grinding. Cleaners remove dirt, weed seeds and other material.
Then water is added to make it easier to separate the outer bran coat from the endosperm, which is the starch and protein component of the durum kernel.
Then the durum is gradually ground down and, sifting and purifying, the endosperm is released. Semolina is the end result. It is a material coarser than regular wheat flour. Quality semolina has good colour, a minimum of bran specks and uniform granulation.
