Bühler has opened a new Milling Academy — a 19,375-square-foot training center for food and feed millers at its headquarters in Uzwil, Switzerland.

Designed to meet the evolving needs of the industry, the company said the facility combines decades of expertise with the latest technology and modern teaching methods. Direct access to research and training centers gives course participants hands-on insight into key industry areas.

“With the opening of our new, state-of-the-art Milling Academy, we are empowering the next generation of milling professionals by offering advanced training, hands-on experience, and access to the latest technologies,” said Stefan Birrer, head of business area Milling Solutions at Bühler Group. “This ensures customers can meet evolving industry demands and drive continuous improvement throughout the food and feed sectors.”

The facility provides participants with direct access to Bühler’s Grain Innovation Center (GIC), multiple research and training centers, and the CUBIC innovation campus. Participants gain practical experience across every aspect of the milling process, from raw material intake to final packaging, Bühler said.

The Milling Academy is developed to optimize learning outcomes.

“The construction of the Milling Academy gave us the opportunity to design and implement everything exactly the way it makes the most sense for our customer training programs,” said Dario Grossmann, head of the Milling Academy. “We also took the opportunity to create many more ways for interactive learning directly at the machines. Participants tell us that with the Milling Academy, we’ve reached an entirely new level of quality. We are seeing increasing interest in training from our customers and are more than ready to meet this growing demand by continuing to provide the best training for millers in the future.”

Featuring three modern classrooms, various break-out spaces for self-learning and group work, and an arena located directly in the machine park, the facility offers a range of teaching environments. Practical, hands-on training takes place on both the latest milling machines and older models.

The Milling Academy also integrates advanced digital learning tools and features two laboratories: one for analytical training and another for electronics training and experimentation.

It includes a fully automated school mill, which processes 24 tonnes per day, allowing for industrial-scale training. It also houses the School of Feed Technology (SFT), significantly expanding resources for both food and feed milling professionals.

The Milling Academy, alongside the School of Feed Technology, offers over 100 courses a year to over 750 trainees in seven languages, Bühler said. The courses are structured in a modular way and are tailored to the needs of machine operators, head millers, plant managers but also include trainings for executives, laboratory workforce, and electrical and mechanical maintenance engineers. On top of that, customized trainings in Uzwil or directly at customer sites around the world are conducted by Bühler’s Milling Academy personnel.

Early participants responded positively to the Academy’s design and approach, Bühler said.

“The infrastructure and concept are outstanding,” said Oliver Efrain Romero Lucero, continuous improvement manager at CMI Alimentos in Guatemala. “The welcoming atmosphere allows you to fully immerse yourself in the world of milling during the training. The instructors are highly skilled, and training materials are also extremely well prepared. Being located near all of the research and training centers also helps deepen your understanding of the company’s diverse business and the many interconnected processes.”

Jan Tuborg Pedersen, team leader at Valsemøllen in Denmark, also was impressed by his experience.

“I really like that it’s bright and modern, with large classrooms and big screens,” he said. “For me, one of the most important innovations is that there’s now a showroom with all the machines we’re learning about, and you run into other students in the hallways. The direct connection between the Milling Academy and the Grain Innovation Center is incredibly useful, it gives you the freedom to move around, meet people, and ask questions wherever you go.”

The Milling Academy also runs specialized programs in partnership with Kansas State University in the United States, and at Bühler’s training mill in Wuxi and feed mill in Changzhou, China. Bühler’s African Milling School, located in Nairobi, Kenya, also has served millers from across Africa and the Middle East since 2015.

Participants in Uzwil have direct access to the GIC, where they can test the machines with material and gain insights into the development and testing of advanced grain processing technologies. The GIC is closely connected to Bühler’s network of research and training centers, including the Grain Processing Innovation Center in Kano (GPIC), Nigeria, which is dedicated to exploring the industrial potential of local and ancient grains and offers training programs. Bühler’s education and innovation efforts are supported by other research and training centers that serve multiple industrial applications for food and feed, as well as specialist facilities such as the Cocoa Competence Center in Côte d’Ivoire and the International Rice Milling Academy in India.

The global network is further strengthened through partnerships with leading academic institutes and research organizations, for example the ETH Zürich in Switzerland, DIL in Germany, and the North Carolina Food Innovation Lab (NCFIL) in the United States, to name a few. By connecting scientific research with industrial practice, these partnerships support market-driven innovation in areas such as sustainable proteins, digitalization, and next-generation food production. In Singapore, Bühler and Givaudan co-run the Protein Innovation Centre, where new plant-based products are developed and scaled.