Slaney Flour, a joint venture between Hemelter Ireland and Ballycarney Grain Ltd., has begun construction of a 300 tonne-a-day flour mill at Ballycarney, Co Wexford, a project that matters to building and architecture professionals because it adds a purpose-built industrial facility with 24,000 tonnes of grain storage to the Irish pipeline. Irish media reported an investment of about €50 million, including €5 million in grant support from Enterprise Ireland.

Hemelter Ireland is part of the family-owned German Hemelter Mühle group, which has milled flour since 1892, supplies about 40,000 tonnes a year to Irish bakeries and operates five milling locations across Germany and Poland.

Ballycarney Grain is run by brothers Andrew and Raymond Kavanagh from their family tillage farm, sourcing, drying and storing grain from around 150 farmers across the south-east.

Marc Cordesmeyer, managing director of Hemelter Ireland, said: “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.”

Auxilia Group acted as project adviser on the grant support.

The structural driver is a government initiative announced in February to back new flour mills, with Ireland importing about 260,000 tonnes of flour a year and operating only one industrial-scale mill, according to the World Grain report.

For the sector, the timing matters because the design is described by Agriland as combining 300 tonnes a day of milling capacity with an innovative square silo layout, two intake bays and two outloading bays, specialist structures that call for experienced industrial designers and builders.

The Farmers Journal reports a planned output of around 80,000 tonnes of flour a year from 100,000 tonnes of grain, indicating a heavy operational building with significant materials handling.

The broader implication for the sector is that state-backed food infrastructure is creating a new category of industrial construction work in regional Ireland, though no designer or contractor has yet been named for this scheme.

Source: World Grain / Enterprise Ireland / Agriland / Farmers Journal