History of churning process

There is good reason to believe that the milking of animals and the origin of butter making predate the beginning of organized and permanent recording of human activities. The evolution of the art of butter making has been intimately associated with the development and use of equipment.

Butter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk to separate the butterfat from buttermilk. Conversion of milk fat into butter is a very old way of preserving milk fat. Most frequently made from cows’ milk, butter can also be made from the milk of other mammals, including sheep, goats, buffalo, and yaks.

The first butter churns had a wooden container and a plunger to agitate the cream until butter formed, referred to as a plunge churn or dash churn. Then, butter churns consisted of a container made from wood, ceramics or galvanized iron that contained paddles. Later centrifugal type butter churns were introduced for butter making. Instead of having spinning paddles, the paddles are fixed and the container spins. This allows better separation of butter from butter milk.

Up to the middle of the nineteenth century, factory butter making was unknown. Most of the butter was made on the farm from cream obtained by gravity creaming. The cream was decanted into a wooden churn and subjected to shear and mild aeration with the help of a stirrer or by rotating the vessel. Once the fat formed clumps, butter milk was removed and the fatty mass gathered and excess moisture removed.

The commercial cream separator was introduced at the end of the 19th century, the continuous churn was commercialized by the middle of the 20th century.

The first butter factories appeared in the US in the early 1860s. In the late 1870s, the centrifugal cream separator was introduced. This eliminated the need to let cream rises naturally to the top of milk. In the beginning, whole milk was shipped to butter factories, and the cream separation took place there. As cream-separation technology became smaller and less expensive, farmers began separating the cream on the farm, and shipping the cream alone to the factory.

The advantages of heat treatment to improve the keeping quality of dairy products were soon realized. This led to the establishment of creameries, where milk was separated, and the availability of larger quantities of cream led to the mechanization of butter making.
History of churning process

History of distillation process in Europe

The first distillation apparatus found in Mesopotamia (today´s Iraq) comes from the period 3500 BC. Nicander (183—135 BC), a Greek poet and physician, spoke of the extraction of perfumes from plants by what should now call as a process of distillation.

The earliest certain chemical distillations were by Greeks in Alexandria in the 1st century AD but these were not distillations of alcohol.

The medieval Arabs adopted the distillation technique of the Alexandrian Greeks, and written records in Arabic begin in the 9th century, but again these were not distillations of alcohol.

Al-Kindi (801-873, wrote in the 9th century a book on perfumes which he named ‘Book of the Chemistry of Perfume and Distillations’. It contained more than hundred recipes for fragrant oils, salves, aromatic waters and substitutes or imitations of costly drugs. The book also described one hundred and seven methods and recipes for perfume-making.

Although there are rare Arab references, towards the end of the first millennium, to the distillation of wine, it seems probable that for religious reasons they did not exploit it. Distillation of alcohol for drinking seems first to have developed in Europe in the twelfth century and thereafter.

The derivations of the words ‘alcohol’ and alambic, from the Arabic word al-koh’l and al-anbiq, indicate that it was from the Islamic word that the practice of distillation first entered Europe. Until the end of the 15th century, distilled wine (aqua vitae) seems to have been used largely as a medicine.

But in 1493, a Nuremburg doctor noted everyone in the city had got into the habit of drinking. As a result, three years later the city authorities forbade the sale of alcohol on feast days. One of the first books on distillation written by J. French has been published in London in 1651.
History of distillation process in Europe

Palm oil processing

The oil palm is a native of West Africa. During ancient time, Egyptian wheels were lubricated with axle grease consisting of fat and lime. Earthen vessels predating the First Dynasty (2920-2770 BC) have been found which contained several pounds of oxidized palm oil.

From the Egyptians and Phoenicians, knowledge of how to apply fats and oils spread to the Hebrews and thence to the Greeks. The Hebrews had oil mills powered by tread that were usually operated by prisoners.

Palm oil and other palm products did not become widely known in Europe until the European involvement in slave trade, and by the 16th century it was known as medicine in Europe.

The invention of the hydrogenation process for oils and fats in 1902 created the possibility of Western employment of palm products as, for example, in the making of margarine.

Plantation production in Africa increase supplies after 1920, This helped meet industry demand as the use of palm oil in manufacture expanded beyond soaps and lubricants to include glycerin, a by-product of palm oil processing for the use in munitions manufacture during World War and later in the making of margarine.

Today palm oil is the second most produced oil in the world – the first being soybean oil.
Palm oil processing

History of heat treatment on food

In contrast to food irradiation processes, heat treatment has been used in the preparation of foods for millennia.

The original concept of in-container sterilization of foods has come a long way since Nicholas Appert first introduced ‘the art of canning’ in 1810.

He eventually received a prize of 12,000 French francs from the French government for inventing a method for safety preserving foods for long term storage.

Nicholas Appert showed that the application of thermal treatment to foods contained in tightly closed cans was able to preserve them from spoilage.

About 50 years later it was Pasteur who gave sense to this procedure by discovering that microbes were responsible for the deterioration of foods and heat acted killing them.

While at the same period, Nestlé started the production of condensed milk and powdered milk by concentrating milk through evaporation.

In 1819, William Underwood of the United States started the first canning factory in Baltimore.

To preserve foods in boiling water took too long, requiring about 6 hours, therefore salt was added to the water bath which increased the boiling temperature, thereby shortening the processing time.

This followed by the discovery of the pressure cooker and later the autoclave, which has gone through subsequent improvement to result in today’s still retorts.

In 1945, researchers studied the effect of heating the germ, at various moisture levels for different periods in a hot air oven, on the enzyme activities and its stability during storage at 37 degree C in laminated metal foil.

FMC Corporation introduced the continuous agitating cookers in the 1950s, and at about the same time, Steriflamme process was developed in France.

Steriflamme is a flame sterilization process in which rapidly rotating cans pass through live flames at temperatures of about 2000 ° F.
History of heat treatment on food

History of flour milling in United States Part I

One of the early mill, gristmills, such as the one at Jamestown in 1621, ground corn and wheat for meal and flour help to feed the colonist while making the millers key local figures.

The vast majority of mills up to about 1800, operated as custom mills that ground the farmer’s grain for a toll in flour paid to the miller.

In the late eighteenth century Oliver Evans invented labor-saving machinery which greatly increased the productivity of flour mills.

Eastern mills that had relied on soft wheat felt competition from larger western millers based in Minneapolis and other Midwestern cities that used new machinery to grind the hard wheat that predominated in the Midwest.

As the population moved westward and grain production increased, four milling became an important industry.

As early as 1850, flour milling accounted for almost 10 percent of all industrial establishments an over 13 percent of the value of all industrial products. The milling industry became increasingly centralized.

In themed 1800s there were an estimated 25,000 mills in America; by 1900 there were only 13,000 mills, by 2000 there were a mere 1oo flour milling companies.

With an expanding rail system, flour milling could be concentrated and product shipped to markets throughout the country. By the end of the nineteenth century, American and Canadian flour exports to Britain had grown steadily.

Baltimore was the early leader in flour milling, developing a flour trade with the South, Latin America, and Europe, while Rochester and Buffalo growing in stature after completion of the Erie Canal.

The most important western milling town was St. Luis. This city with its fine river and rail transportation facilities captured markets for flour in the South and the East.
History of flour milling in United States

Cleaning in place (CIP) in history

Forty years ago the concept of cleaning in place CIP) was unknown. In all industries manual cleaning of equipment was universally accepted as the best way of achieving acceptable standards of cleanliness.

Cleaning-in-place was first applied in the dairy industry in the late 1940s. The name used to stress that pipes no longer needed to be assembled. The dairy industry started with the spray-cleaning of milk tanks.

At that times tinned –copper tubing and stainless steel tubing, the normal materials for construction of ‘sanitary’ piping systems became relatively scarce.

Early applications of cleaning-in-place were restricted to piping systems and generally to only longer piping systems.

Some operators experimented with Pyrex glass lines which, due to the ‘breakage’ hazard, were of necessity cleaning-in-place. The development of special joints and gasket for stainless steel piping systems permit them to be recirculation cleaned.

The results achieved suggested that even greater benefits could be obtained if similar procedures could be applied to the cleaning of vessels such as tank trucks, storage tanks, processing vats and valves.

Cleaning-in-place has since been used in all industries where sanitation is important.
Cleaning in place (CIP) in history

History of fudge making

Fudge is a combination of sugar, butter, milk and frequently nuts. Its origin is often credited to New England women’s colleges toward the end of the 19th century. It is said that the first batch of fudge was a result of an accidental ‘fudged’ batch of caramels, hence the name.

Early handmade fudge was cut into squares or diamonds, heightening the contrast to the sophistication of professional.

Chocolate fudge became the most popular flavor as fudge making became a widespread fad during the early 20th century.

Although quick and cheap, fudge making required skill and precision. By the 1880s, due to improved processing methods, both granulated sugar used to make fudge and the chocolate that was its preferred flavoring had become inexpensive.

At the turn of the century, fudge making and taffy-pulling parties for children became fashionable.
History of fudge making

History of quick freezing

The first patent (British) related to food freezing was for rapid freezing of a product by immersion on cold medium and was granted to H. Benjamin in 1842.

An innovative freezing system for fish was patented by William Davis in 1868; the fish were placed in metal containers and sealed before immersions in an ice/salt mixture.

American inventor Clarence Birdseye developed the quick-freezing process of food preservation in the 20th century. During his stay on the arctic, Birdseye observed that the combination of ice, wind and low temperature almost froze just-caught fish.

Most importantly, he also found that when such quick-frozen fish were cooked and eaten, they were scarcely different in taste and texture from how they would have been if fresh. Birdseye labored for seven years at a New Jersey icehouse to develop a method for packaging foods and rapidly reducing the temperature to freezing.

After years of work, Birdseye invented a system that packed dressed fish, meat or vegetables into waxed-cardboard cartons, which were flash-frozen under pressure. Birdseye patented the food freezing process in 1926. Fortune declared that freezing was one of the most exciting and revolutionary ideas in the history of food’.

Commercially packed fish products appeared in 1929, under the Birds Eye label, and the first retail styles frozen food packs were launched in 1939.

With the passage of the Rural Electrification Act in 1933, many rural households became members of a local rural electric cooperative and by the end of World War II; most rural homes could operate not only a refrigerator but also a home freezer.
History of quick freezing

History of food canning

Canning a method of preserving food by sealing it in sterilized glass jars or metal cans was the answer to preventing food from spoilage while also preserving much of its taste, texture and nutritional value.

The use of canned foods dates back to Napoleonic days when a French candy maker, Nicolas Appert, conducted food preservation experiments by canning soups and vegetables in champagne bottles.

By the early 1800s, the French Navy carried bottled vegetables on their ships worth reportedly good result. Other than navies, explorer also using canned food for their journey.  One of the explorer utilized canned products was Otto von Kozebuem, who used them on his three-year voyage to the Bering Strait and South Seas in 1815-1818.

Soon after, a patent for canning in ‘bottles or other vessels of glass, pottery, tin or other metals or fit materials’ was granted to an Englishman, Peter Durant.

The French canned sardine industry developed form 1824, when Joseph Colin opened the first fish cannery.

In the late 1800s, Luigi Stampacchia received patent for a process using a double-action press to produce a ‘double-drawn’ can and the first ‘ironed’ was produced.

Can openers were invented until 1858, so early cans came with instructions: Cut around the top near the outer edge with a chisel and hammer. At the same year (1858), John Mason invented glass jar that still bears his name and home canning became feasible.

A US patent was granted in 1904 to James Rigby for producing cans with the wall thickness reduced by burnishing.

During World War II some food cans had wicks on them like candle. The wicks were attached to an inside tube. When soldiers lit the wick, the tube heated the food.

It was not until the 1960s that the first commercial beverage cans were produced by the drawing and ironing process developed in the 1800s. The introduction of the ‘easy open’ end in the early 1960s led to wide consumer acceptance.

Since 1959, when Coors Brewery made the first two-piece aluminium can, nearly all beverages cans, , as well as many similar types of food container are manufactured through the operation known as drawing and ironing.

In 1918, scientists developed a way to measure the rate of heat penetration into a can or jar. Finally they figure out that pressure canning at 240-250 ° F completely destroys the bacteria.
History of food canning

Canning of fish

Nicholas Appert invents canning method in 1810. He put fresh or cooked meat, fish or vegetables in bottles, sealed them and then heated them in boiling water.  Fish and lobsters were among the preserved food delivered by Nicholas to the French government soon after the publication of his method.

In 1820 the first canning plants start to operate in Boston and New York.

Lobster canning is reported form the United Kingdom in 1817 and soon spread to the United States with lobster and salmon as early packs.

In early days ‘appertized’ foods were mostly packaged in glass containers. Fish canning was introduced to the Atlantic seaboard of America by English immigrants and the tin ‘cannister’ was invented in 1810. It first received its abbreviation ‘can’ in New England.

The use of steam was introduced around 1840. By then a sardine canning industry was already well established in France.

In 1864 canning was started on the US Pacific Coast, where an abundant supply of salmon gave rose to rapid expansion which later, this commodity entering world trade spreading to Japan and Siberia. Tuna fish is first canned in 1909 in United States
Canning of fish

History of ricotta cheese processing

Ricotta cheese is a soft, bland, semisweet cheese that originated in Italy. It is a whey cheese of the Mediterranean area, prepared traditionally by heating whey from sheep or goat milk in open kettle. Cheese production is one of the oldest forms of biotechnology, dating perhaps from 6000 BC and was well established during the era of the Roman Empire.

The Bronze Age milk boilers were elegantly designed to limit frothing and boiling, thus they appear to have been tailor made for producing acid/heat coagulated cheese from milk.

Milk boilers were ingenious ceramic vessels that were used to limit frothing and boiling over when heating milk to high temperatures during the making of acid/heat-coagulated (ricotta –type) cheeses.

The ancient Greeks created cheesecakes with ricotta cheeses as one of the main ingredients. The cheese was combined with wheat flour and honey and pounded to a paste-like and smooth consistency. During the first Olympic games that happened in Greece in 776 BC, the athletes ate cheesecakes which provide them with the energy they needed for several rigorous competition.

The gourmet Columella explained the curd-making process; the poet Varro summarized the digestibility of regional cheeses. Athenaeus, writing around 200 AD, admired Sicily’s ‘tender’ cheese, a possible reference to ricotta, which was made by boiling whey with whole sheep’s milk and straining the curds through a basket.

Originally, ricotta cheese was produced from whey derived from mozzarella or provolone cheese production, Ricotta now prepared from whole milk or without addition of whey.
History of ricotta cheese processing

History of fudge confectionery

In ancient times, the Egyptians, Arabs and Chinese would candy fruits and nuts by rolling the ingredients in a mixture of flour and honey. Modern confectionery is said to be originated in the 17th century, and the development of beet sugar resulted in a dynamic growth of the confectionery trade.

It is said that the origin of fudge was ‘fudge’ toffee where sugars were inadvertently allowed by crystallize. The original recipe of fudge came from Vassar College in the United States.

Fudge was something that homesick girls at school could make in their dormitories late at night using a spirit lamp borrowed from the chemistry laboratory, a gaslight, or a chafing dish of a popular gadget at the time.

Vassar graduates Emelyn Hartridge wrote that in 1886 she had obtained a recipe while visiting a classmate’s family in Baltimore.

Two years later, Emelyn is reported to have made 30 pounds of the tasty treat for a fundraising event at the college.

Fudge, popular in the United States and Britain but hardly known in Europe, was probably invented because of an accident during crystallization phase – that is, if a high-sugar soft caramel is beaten while cooling, it will tend to crystallize.

Early fudge was thought to be easy candy to make, because it required relatively less boiling than hard candies and toffee.

In production, toffee base is made containing a greater proportion of sugar than normal.
History of fudge confectionery

The first food canning factory in United States

In the United States commercial bottling operations did not commence until the arrival of experienced English canners.

The first was William Underwood, and English pickler, who landed in New Orleans in 1817.

In 1822 – he establishes a canning factory in Boston.  Underwood canned luxury goods and ships’ provisions, including oysters, lobsters, fish, meats, soups, fruits and a few vegetables.

By 1839, his tomato catsup is being shipped along the Mississippi River.

Another early packing firm was operated by Ezra Dagger and his son in law, Thomas Kensett an English immigrant who packed salmon, lobsters and oysters in New York starting in about 1819.

In 1825 they applied for a tin canning patent, the first in the United States.

In 1875, industry improvements in canning foods allowed Gustavus Swift and P.D Armour to establish Chicago meatpacking plants a key development in accelerating the settlement of the American West.

In 1883, Edwin and O. W Norton introduced the first ‘automatic line’ canning factory.

Campbell Soup, H.J Heinz, Borden’s Milk and Libby McNeill & Libby were among those adopting the new technology.
The first food canning factory in United States

Ancient history of malting barley

Malting is a process where the seeds of the harvested barley are soaked in water until they sprout and begin to activate enzymes that can covert starch to sugars. Beer yeast will later convert those sugars to alcohol and carbon oxide.

Around 6000 years ago, the Sumerians wrote the first references about barley and beer.

During the next 5000 years the Sumerian beer recipes were refined by the Babylonians and then by the Egyptians, by the Greeks and then the Romans.

Herodotus, Pliny, Strabo assert that beer was prepared by malting barley called zythos.

According to the historian and student of Socrates, Xenophon of Athens (430 – 354 BC) the Armenian prepared fermented drink from barley.

The introduction of beer and barley malting into Europe began in 55 BC by Julius Caesar’s Roman Legions.

Beer making then spread throughout Europe and especially to the northern part of the Empire to the Gauls the Teutons and into Scandinavian.

According to Cornelius Tacitus (56 AD – 117 AD), the ancient Germans malted their barley before brewing from it.

By the end of the first millennium AD the art and science of malting barley and beer making were firmly established in the monasteries.
Ancient history of malting barley

Coffee decaffeination process: the history

From its earliest history, there were health concerns regarding coffee and its effects. Decaffeinated coffee was first developed commercially in Europe 1900.

Decaffeination with chemical solvents such as methylenchloride or acetyl acetate was first successfully applied by Roselius in ’Kaffee HAG’. Dr. Ludwig Roselius’ original process for decaffeinating coffee was patented in Germany in 1905.

Before the First World War Roselius extended his business to the United States and built a coffee extraction plant at New Brunswick, New Jersey.

In USA the patent issued to Meyer, Roselius and Wimmer in 1908. The process as described in a 1908 patent consists of first, moisturizing green coffee to at least 20% to facilitated transport of caffeine through the cell wall and then contacting the moistened beans with solvents.

Until the 1980s, synthetic organic solvents commonly were used in the United States to extract the caffeine. 

The so called ‘water decaffeination’ process was developed as an alternative by General Foods around 1941 and was patented in 1943.

In the early 1980s, coffee was implicated as a possible cause of birth defects, benign breast lumps, pancreatic cancer and heart disease. Sales of decaffeinated coffee rose dramatically.

Until the mid-90s, decaffeinated coffee was considered to be flavorless, bitter and a poor substitute for regular coffee. As the process of decaffeination has improved, so has its market share with nearly 30 percent of the specialty and gourmet coffees being decaffeinated.
Coffee decaffeination process: the history

History of chocolate coating

Chocolate assortment, confections bars coated with chocolate and chocolate cookies and cakes are all manufactured by the coating process known as chocolate enrobing.

Since it was discovered that food pieces could be coated with chocolate as a way of creating new and wonderful taste sensations, candy makers have accumulated a wide variety of shapes, sizes, textures and recipes for articles to be coated.

Until the early 1900s chocolates were coated by hand, or by automated batch techniques copying hand-dipping methods.

The first enrober is credited to Ernest Paul Frederic Magniez of France in 1901 and was produced by A Savy.

The early chocolate makers who started as manufacturers stayed manufacturers and were coaters as well. 

Swiss companies such as Nestle, Suchard, Lindt, Tobler, and Callier began as manufacturers and coaters with their special consumer candies and continued as both.
History of chocolate coating

The invention of spray drying

The history of spray drying is traceable to a United States patent issued in 1872. The patent no 125,406 entitled ‘Improvement in Drying and Concentrating Liquid Substances by Atomizing.’

Samuel Percy was first described the principle of spray drying and he is considered to be the inventor of spray drying technology.

It took nearly 50 years for the first commercially successful spray dryer design to be developed and operated on so-called heat sensitive products.

Since that time, the spray drying process has been developed for use in a wide range of industrial applications including the manufacture of powdered soaps and detergents, powdered milk, instant coffee, corn starch, fertilizer production, powdered polymer resins and the production of mineral ores and clays.

 It has also been employed as a process technology to impart unique functional attributes onto excipients such as lactose, mannitol and micro-crystalline.

The big step forward in spray drying technology was the invention of instantization by Peebles.

Further innovations were the development of membrane methods for concentrating and fractionating prior to spray drying and the introduction of three stage drying procedure.

The invention of spray drying

History of meat curing process

Prior to the development of refrigeration and cooling technologies, large quantities of salt were added to meats for long term preservation. The history of nitrate usage as saltpeter, in meat curing is lost in antiquity, but preservation of meat with salt preceded the intentional use of nitrate by many centuries.

The origin of meat curing can be traced back to the third century BC, when Cato recorded careful instructions for the dry curing of hams.

As early as 3000 BC in Mesopotamia, cooked meats and fish were preserved in sesame oil and dried, salted meat and fish were part of the Sumerian diet.

The early processed meat products were prepared with one purpose in mind: their preservation for use in times of scarcity.

During 900 BC, salt was being produced in ‘salt gardens’ in Greece and dry salt curing and smoking of meat were well established.

The Romans in 200 BC learned the use of salt from the Greeks and besides curing fish, the Romans preserved various types of meat, such as pork with pickles containing salt and other ingredients. It was during this time that the reddening effect of salting was noted.

By medieval times, treating meat with salt, saltpeter and smoke was common place and saltpeter’s effect to ‘fix’ the red color was well recognized.

Meat curing was more of an art than a science in the early nineteenth century, but as a greater understanding of the curing process evolved in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the role of nitrate and nitrite in the formation of cured meat color and flavor became apparent.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, significant changes in meat curing had occurred. Various method of curing, namely dry, wet or pickle cures and combinations of the two were commonplace. The first dry cured meat products were probably inferior by today’s standards.

Scientific principles of curing meats were not applied until the later part of the nineteenth century when the growing meat packaging industry began to search for ways to improve the quality.

Since the mid 1920s, much advancement has been made in the meat curing industry. The direct use of nitrite greatly reduced the time for curing, since waiting for reduction of nitrate to nitrite was no longer required.
History of meat curing process

Ancient Food Preservation

Food preservation is as old as human civilization. Preservation of foods inhibits spoilage cause by bacterial growth, oxidation, insects or desiccation.

Early humans, probably by trial and error, also started to develop basic forms of food preservation, which possible also made safer, e.g. drying, salting, fermentation.

The Chinese reportedly preserved vegetables by fermentation in prehistoric times and Plinius preserved white cabbage in earthenware pots in Italy in the first century AD.

The earliest recorded instances of food preservation date back to ancient Egypt and the drying of grains and subsequent storage in seal silos.

The stored grain could be kept for several years to insure against famine in case the Nile River flooded.

Fermentation, oil packing, pickling, salting, and smoking are all ancient preservation technologies.

Refrigeration in caves or under cool water were also well known ancient techniques of food preservation.

People in many parts of the world developed techniques for drying and smoking foods as far as 6000 BC. Microorganism need water to carry out their metabolic processes.

Salting was so important in Roman life that Roman soldiers received “salarium,” or salt, as payment. This is the origin of today’s term, ‘salary.’

Ancient Mesoamericans used salt as a preservative for trade in fish and other food stuff over long distances, as well as for storing food for long periods of time.

Since Phoenician times (from around 1250 BC) the standard practice for preserving fish was to gut it, dry it and pack it in layers with salt.
Ancient Food Preservation

Cereal Processing: History of Milling

The objective of cereal milling is to remove the bran and germ from the seed and to free the endosperm.

This left whole as in rice milling, ground into coarse pieces (wheat semolina, maize grits) or milled into flour.

Since prehistoric times up to the middle of the 19th century, cereal grains were ground in small mills, driven by hand, wind or water power.

The process of milling wheat into flour was revolutionized around 800 BC in Mesopotamia, when animal, water and wind power were harnessed for the first time to run the large stones used for grinding.

In ancient Rome the mill and the bakery were the very same enterprise. The grain were milled and worked up without delay to dough and bread.

The flour ground in such a mill was whole grain flour, because the complete cereal grains poured into the mill on top, came out out as flour at the bottom.

Probably the most ancient technique involves the grinder rocking backwards and forwards while grasping an ellipsoid stone in both hands which crushes the grain within a larger concave stone suits in front of the grinder.

Both upper and lower stone are usually made from a hard igneous rock such as granite or basalt to avoid the production of stone in the grinding process.

Around the Mediterranean and possibly also in China during the first half of the first millennium BC, there were two sophisticated versions of the handmill the hopper-rubber and the lever mill.

Moving to the milling process proper, it was in 1878 that Henry Simon took 19 British millers, to Hungary to view the all steel rollermill invention.

This machine became the heart of what is known as the gradual reduction system, commonly used worldwide today.
Cereal Processing: History of Milling