The North Dakota State Mill and Elevator in Grand Forks, North Dakota, had a profit of $13.46 million in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2021, $2 million higher than it was in the 2020 fiscal year and the fourth highest on record, said Vance Taylor, North Dakota Mill and Elevator CEO.
The mill and elevator had gross sales of $339.1 million and shipped a total of 15.78 million hundredweight of flour during the 2020-2021 fiscal year, he said.
“Because of the nice effort of our employees , to continue to work through the pandemic, we had our fourth best year on record,” Taylor said.
The company's operations provided more than $250.76 million to the region’s economy and another $581.8 million in secondary economic activity, bringing the total economic impact to more than $883.5 million, according to the audit report of the North Dakota State Mill and Elevator by North Dakota State Auditor Josh Gallion for the year ended June 30, 2021.
In the first quarter of the new fiscal year, which began on July 1, 2021, and ended Sept. 30, 2021, the North Dakota State Mill and Elevator had profits of $3.35 million, 2.2% higher than the same quarter of the previous fiscal year, the company reported at the Nov. 29, 2021, North Dakota Industrial Commission meeting.
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The North Dakota State Mill and Elevator had sales of $101.5 million between July 1, 2021, and Sept. 30, 2021, a 26.5% increase over sales for those three months in 2020.
The mill and elevator reported total shipments of 3.91 million hundredweight of wheat and durum in the first quarter of the 2021 fiscal year, a slight increase over the 3.89 million hundredweight shipped during the same period the previous fiscal year.
Bulk shipments, which totaled 3.3 million hundredweight, were about 100,000 hundredweight higher in the first quarter of the 2021 fiscal year than in the previous fiscal year.
However, first quarter 2021 family flour shipments and organic shipments ,which were 74.73 hundredweight, and organic flour shipments, which were 33.5 million hundredweight, were significantly lower than in the previous fiscal year.. Family flour shipments dropped by 54% and organic flour shipments declined by 18% as a result of retailers’ high flour inventories, Taylor said.
The North Dakota Industrial Commission approved North Dakota State Mill and Elevator infrastructure improvements totaling $810,000 at the Nov. 29 meeting. The projects are a $460,000 upgrade of grain terminal belts, $150,000 to replace 30 roll chills to make grinding more efficient and adding $200,000 to a rail track crossing and drainage upgrade improvement project that had been approved July 27, 2021.
