Cereals processing technology

Cereal production methods 13
Table 2.1 Annual UK cereal supply and demand estimates, 1998/9 (’000 tonnes)
Wheat Barley Oats
Opening stocks 1,358 2,013 33
Production 15,104 6,632 587
Imports 1,124 162 8
Total availability 17,946 8,807 628
Human and industrial use 6,372 1,950 270
Home grown (5,390) (1,842) (262)
Animal feed 6,336 3,185 255
Seed 337 200 18
Other 77 33 3
Total consumption 13,122 5,368 546
Exports and intervention 3,348 2,590 0
Source: Home Grown Cereals Authority, Market Information (mi), 20 December 1999.
climatic conditions during grain filling and harvesting can often determine
overall quality standard. Hence year to year variation in grain quality will have a
major influence on the balance between supply and demand, which in turn will
influence the premium paid to growers over and above that paid for feed grain.
Currently some six million tonnes of wheat and three million tonnes of barley
are used as animal feed in the UK each year. During the pre-war period oats was
the dominant feed grain, used largely to feed the farm horse, the primary source
of power on the arable farm. In the 1960s barley became the dominant feed
grain, but more recently wheat with its lower fibre and higher energy and protein
content has been used increasingly by the compound feed manufacturing
industry. Quality criteria for feed grain have not been well established;
consequently very low priority is given to breeding programmes to improve
feeding characteristics, although low specific weight grain is considered to be of
lower nutritional value.
The major human and industrial uses of wheat in the UK are for
breadmaking, biscuit manufacture and distilling. Each year approximately five
million tonnes of wheat is milled into flour; two thirds of this is used for
breadmaking, the remainder is used in the manufacture of biscuits and other
food products. The introduction of the Chorleywood Breadmaking Process has
allowed the use of lower protein flour which has enabled a much higher
inclusion of home-grown wheat in the manufacture of the standard white loaf.
Although most biscuit flour is made from home-grown wheat, some products
such as wafers and crackers may require specific varieties or the addition of
gluten modifying additives to achieve the desired eating qualities.
Specific weight, a measure of the bulk density of grain, is widely used as a
wheat quality indicator. High specific weight grain results in better flour
extraction within a specific variety, but is not always consistent across different
varieties. It is a crude measure of grain fill and can vary from 40 kg hl to over