THE team at Woods Organic Flour Mill is small, but in its brief history, the business has already travelled swiftly up the ladder of repute in the industry. The three storey roller mill has had a home in the historic Flour Mill on Inverell's Ring Street since 2012.
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Mill founder Bryce Woods is a sixth generation wheat farmer from the Moree region where the family maintains an organic production farm. The Woods’ farm supplies some product, but he sources the high-demand organic grain from producers wherever he can find it.
Bryce said they can include up to five per cent of grain from those farmers in their three year conversion to organic production.
“It’s a lot to help out. We need the product and three years is hard,” Bryce said.
He said the business is tough on conventional growers with little control over selling options and price. He has been receiving calls from producers interested in getting into the organic industry.
“This puts some control back into the hands of the farmer. There are quite a number of markets out there, and the farmer can dictate price pretty well,” Bryce said.
He said their products have rated well with top-end artisan bakers, and finding a comfortable niche in the Chinese market, with another international interest about to climb aboard.
“It’s often said it’s at the top of the organic stack,” Bryce said. The mill manufactures baker’s, wholemeal, kamut, spelt and rye and mixed flours for the wholesale market, with bran, pollard and meal mixes that can be purchased right out of the building. Bryce said they will introduce their flours to the retail market in 2015.
Woods Mill is staffed by Bryce, his wife Nat Wolfenden-Woods, Quentin Williams and invaluable milling manager Rod Moore. Bryce felt none of it could have happened without the expert advice from their adjunct advisor, milling master, John McCorquodale.
“He’s always on the end of the phone, which is fantastic,” Bryce said.
John comes from four generations of milling; at its foundation, the McCorquodale Brothers Flour Mill in Sydney, dating to 1896. John has decades as milling manager with major players in Australian milling and production and the BRI Pilot Mill in Sydney.
Bryce said with John’s assistance, they have achieved so much after what might have been a disastrous beginning. He attended his first Sydney milling course after purchasing his mill in pieces off the internet from China, earning him a bit of ribbing from the other participants.
During lunch, an elderly gentleman sat beside him and asked if he was the young man with the Chinese mill, and said it wasn’t too late to get out if it. Bryce admitted he had already signed the cheque.
“I asked him ‘would you come and commission it; help?’ Little did I know who he was and quite how famous. And he said yes,” Bryce grinned.
John went all through the mill, and replaced many parts and drives. Handling and processing systems were replaced, redesigned or introduced. With his help, they have boosted their grain extraction to 83 per cent, and installed a lab in the mill to perfect the products.
Bryce expressed deep appreciation for John’s vision and support from the Grain Growers Limited. He said despite his own experience and their current achievement, there was so much yet to learn.
“Never going to end,” he said.
