2023 is a year of celebration for our windmills here in Swaffham Prior and National Mills Weekend which takes place on the 13th & 14th May marks the start of those celebrations!

Both mills will be open on Sunday 14th May from 2pm to 5pm. Tour the new sails ready to be lifted into place at the Smock Mill, explore Fosters Mill with a guided tour and, wind permitting, see flour being produced. Refreshments available at Fosters Mill!

Swaffham Prior to become the only place in the UK where you can see two windmills working together in close proximity

Swaffham Prior has had two mills since the mid 19th Century, but not since 1927 have both mills been able to work together. In June 2023, we will once again be able to witness this magnificent site and become the only place in the UK where two mills are able to work (sails turning and pointing into wind) in such close proximity!

At the end of May, James Forsyth and his team will be installing the windmills sails at the Smock Tower Mill. Since 1927 when the Smock Tower was severely damaged in a storm, no sails have turned on the Smock Mill – by June 2023, they will be turning once again along with Fosters Mill. We have been enjoying the sight of both mills facing into the wind for some months since the cap was installed and commissioned on the Smock Tower, now James is ready for the next stage in the re-birth of the Smock Mill!

25 Years of the Priors Flour

Fosters Mill reaches an important milestone in 2023, celebrating 25 years of the Priors Flour, the brand which carries the Swaffham Prior name across the whole of the UK at least in terms of flour! As a reader of our updates, you will be aware that the business continues to enjoy great success working with shops, bakeries, restaurants, direct customers and a click & collect / mail order business which sees flour go across the UK and into Europe.

We hope we will welcome you to the mill in our anniversary year and look forward to seeing you soon! We also want to take this opportunity to thank you for your support and business and look forward to continuing to supply you with great flour! Happy Baking!!

Happy Easter from all at the Priors Flour! We email today to share a copy of the recent film created by Justin Ingham for Alan Titchmarsh’s programme “Love your Weekend”. We are very grateful to Love Your Weekend and Penny Lane Entertainment for allowing us to share the film on our website.

Please note that the mill is closed on Sunday 9th April 2023 to allow the team to enjoy their Easter Break!

You might be interested to know that Fosters Mill is due to appear on Alan Titchmarsh’s Love your Weekend programme on ITV on the 26th February 2023 from 9.30am! The crew joined us last week for a days’ filming and we are advised that the piece they created should be shown on the 26th February. We look forward to seeing it too!

We’ve been rather quiet over the last few months in terms of blog post updates, but behind the scenes, Priors Flour HQ has been a hive of activity.

New Shop & Packing Space

To enable us to have a larger shop area and to provide a better service, including a more efficient flour bagging, packing and dispatch set of processes, we have converted an existing building to create our new shop and packing space! The work was completed at the end of December 2022, but the last few weeks have allowed us to add some of the finishing touches, so we’re proud to present:

Traditional flour milling has to balance age-old tradition and historic machinery / buildings with modern food production requirements, so whilst our production processes remain the same, we’ve been able to improve the packing & flour dispatch facilities we have:

New Parcel of Milling Wheat 2023

Each year we rigorously test samples of wheat to find the best available milling wheat for you! The 2022 harvest was… trying! At last however, we have found a parcel of wheat from Devon which meets our exacting standards. The flour will be in production from April / May onwards when we will publicise the farm where it was grown. Here are some pictures of white sourdough battards made with the flour here at Priors’ Flour HQ:

Can you contribute to the DEFRA consultation – the last step in this important change to flour fortification legislation?

As a UK consumer, you are probably aware of the long-running discussions around the fortification of flour with folic acid. You may have already contributed to the campaigns traditional millers have been engaged in raising awareness of the issues that potentially arise for us millers should the final legislation require us to add folate (folic acid) to flour.

Whilst not wanting to re-cap the whole issue, a couple of key points:

• Traditional millers accept the medical reasons for fortification
• Our concerns relate to the ability of traditional millers to “dose” flour accurately given the traditional machinery we use in the flour production process and the ability of millers to adapt their processes given the historic buildings we work in
• Folic acid will be added to a cocktail of additives which millers are required to add to certain types of flour to enable them to meet the minimum nutritional standards defined in the Bread & Flour Regulations 1998.

Progress as a result of our Campaign – with your help!

As a result of the campaigns and awareness raising millers undertook with your help and in my capacity as Chairman of the Traditional Cornmillers Guild, I was asked to represent traditional millers on a forum convened by DEFRA to discuss changes to the Bread & Flour Regulations, the legislation which determines what is added to flour. I am pleased to say that the Forum took our concerns seriously and after a visit to see traditional mills by a team from DEFRA and the DHSC (Department for Health & Social Care), discussion and economic modelling, an exemption for small mills producing less than 500 tonnes of non-wholemeal wheat flour per annum is being considered.

Your help is needed again!

Before DEFRA’s recommendations are considered by Ministers and a final decision made on the implementation of the legislation to fortify flour with flour acid, a final consultation is being conducted to gather views on the options to change / update the Bread & Flour Regulations. One of the options is the small mills exemption mentioned above. If this exemption is enacted, it will actually mean that all fortification of flour will be exempted for small mills (producing less than 500 tonnes of non-wholemeal wheat flour). You may be aware, that all millers are currently required to ensure our flours reach the ‘minimal nutritional compositional standards’ as defined in the legislation (hence why we are required to add fortificants to our white flour). This is because (as noted above) the vehicle by which folic acid will be added is the same cocktail of vitamins, nutrients etc that enable flour to meet the minimal nutritional compositional standards.

I am aware that many of our customers would prefer that their flour did not contain additives..!

Contribution to the Consultation

The consultation is open to anyone and can be found here.

I appreciate there are rather a lot of sections to the online consultation, but would urge you to register your views. This is a deal-breaking issue for traditional mills and could force many mills to cease flour production should they be required to fortify flour as they would not be able to meet the precise “dosing” requirements (see above).

Thank you in advance for your attention and help. Jon Cook