Innovative and successful grain specialist reflects on its long history and takes stock
10 years ago, this family-owned company from Ulm introduced a new product line called Schapfen „Meine Mühle“ at südback 2011. This enabled bakers to re-brand their basic offerings to an authentic quality, organic bread and baked goods line. Eight new products were first presented to the baking industry at the leading trade fair ten years ago. Today, the range comprises 27 products that are still produced in accordance with the original „Meine Mühle“ quality promise. They still meet the current trend for authentic, organic, healthy foods. SchapfenMühle will continue its successful path and expand the popular product line to include contemporary standards.
The motives which inspired the product launch back in 2011 are still relevant today. The innovative grain specialist wanted to offer bakers a way to produce baked goods of authentic quality which satisfied increasingly strong consumer expectations for baked goods that are as natural as possible. „The driving force behind the introduction of such a product line, which was courageous and progressive for its time, was our former enterprise sales manager, Karl Schmitz. He fielded an increasing number of requests from customers for products with fewer E-numbers. He also had a feel for promising trends driving the food industry. My father-in-law was receptive to his ideas,“ says Ralph Seibold, managing director of SchapfenMühle. The development of the first products in the line was accompanied by the formulation of a quality promise consisting of six sub-categories, in which the family-owned company laid down the quality specs for the Schapfen „Meine Mühle“ product range still in place today. The concept combines the use of declaration-friendly raw materials with a short and comprehensible list of ingredients. Preference is given to refined milled grain products from the company’s own mill.
The brand underscores the close and consistently cooperative partnership between bakers and the mill, paying tribute to consumer demands for authentic, regional ingredients. To this day, „Meine Mühle“ offers select, high-quality raw materials for bakers in the know. In doing so, the grain specialist combines traditional knowledge with the latest findings, along with experience handling organic ingredients. From the very beginning, the product line has been marketed with its own logo, which is undergoing a re-design on the brand’s tenth anniversary.
Due to high demand, the original range of eight products was soon expanded over the years, and all of these have been successful by holding on to the promise of quality. „The new line was well-received from the start. Some of the original products are still in regular use by our customers today and it is impossible to imagine overall production without them. The fundamentals we laid out back then remain unchanged. Since consumer-generated challenges, along with the needs of the food retail trade and our loyal customers in the baking industry are constantly changing, we will continue to update the line in the coming years. The authentic grain trend – primarily spelt – remains unbroken and will certainly play a significant role in the development of any upcoming ‚Meine Mühle‘ products,“ explains Ralph Seibold, when answering the question about whether new products can be expected from SchapfenMühle in the near future.
