Whether it’s bread for breakfast, roti for lunch or biscuits with tea, wheat is a part of every meal.

Being a staple part of the desi diet, the demand for wheat flour is such that there are flour mills present in cities and small towns across the country that produce three kinds of flour: wheat flour (atta), maida flour and semolina.

These products are then used in households and eateries alike to make anything from roti to bread, cake, pastries, naan, biscuits and so on.

Where wheat flour once made using stone mills known as chakki, milling wheat flour is a long process that includes more than six units and employs a number of workers.

First, the wheat comes from farms and go-downs to local flour mills in the form of raw grain, which are cleaned and ground up.

A machine is used to clean the wheat of dust, stones and metal. Next, the wheat is washed and dried, and moved to a magnetic machine that removes metal pieces.

The wheat then goes through grinding rolls, two large metal rollers of three sizes that move at varying speeds. The rollers crack open the grain and separate the interior of the wheat from the outer layer of bran.

The wheat passes through sieves that separate it into three categories. The finest is known as fine atta, larger pieces of the interior are semolina and the third portion is made up of pieces of the interior still attached to the bran.

Iron is also added to the wheat flour to make fortified wheat flour, as mandated by the Punjab government, to overcome malnutrition, Chaudhry Afzal Mehmood, the owner of a flour mill near Novelty Cinema, explained.

While the wheat is ground up with machines, workers keep the machines running and repeatedly check that they are working properly, he said. Once the wheat has been ground, it is packed into bags of various sizes.

Mr Mehmood said wholegrain wheat flour, fine flour and semolina are produced at the mill, which ensures that the product is of good quality. No other grain is used in the flour, he said, because the machines used are only able to grind the wheat grains and cannot mix anything into them.

Quality tests are carried out before the grinding process begins and again after the process has been completed.

Mr Mehmood said that although the cost of electricity has been rising with every passing day, the price of wheat has not increased because it is maintained by the government. He said that many workers are involved in the milling process, after which the mill owner is responsible for selling the finished product. Because it is a staple food product, the demand for wheat flour would never end, he added.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2018