Turning grain into bread
Bread is an element of nearly every cuisine in the world, whether it’s soft bread for sandwiches or wholemeal and crispy straight from the oven. Find out how GF Casting Solutions contributes to your favorite type of bread.
Bread is one of the world’s most important staple foods. Even though each country has its own specialties – such as naan in India, crispbread in Finland, baguettes in France, or flatbread in Turkey – the main ingredient is usually flour produced from one type of grain. In the past, farmers harvested that grain by hand in the field. Today, it is usually done by a machine: the combine harvester.
Did you know?
It takes some 5’500 grains of wheat to produce the flour for 500 grams of bread. On average, you can harvest 16’000 grains per square meter.
With 3’200 varieties, Germany has the biggest range of bread types. In 2014, German bread culture was declared an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO.
With 104 kilograms of bread consumed per capita per year, Turkey is the leader in Europe. In contrast, the Chinese people only consume 7.2 kilograms per year. Mantous are traditional - soft, sweet steamed bread for breakfast.
Powerful agricultural machines, such as the Lexion 750 from CLAAS, consist of more than 50’000 components. GF Casting Solutions from Leipzig (Germany) supplies some of them, ensuring the functioning of the combine harvesters. For the crawler chassis of the Lexion 750, GF produces large iron castings such as the drive, idler and intermediate wheels, which often weigh several hundred kilograms despite their optimized design.
One advantage of advanced harvesting machines is that they cut the grain precisely, separate the grains from chaff and straw, and directly remove everything that is not needed. The use of agricultural machinery does have a negative impact on the eco balance of a loaf of bread, but you can, for example, make sure that the grain in your favorite bread is organically grown. Our recommendation: Why not bake the bread yourself using local flour from a mill in your area? There’s nothing quite like the smell of oven-fresh bread. Enjoy it!