SafeGuard® Treatment & Delivery System

Flour is a raw ingredient, and its use in ready-to-eat applications needs to be a part of today’s discussions in bakery and food manufacturing. Just as there’s consideration given to the best sourcing practices, pricing and sustainability, make sure that food safety is part of your flour selection process.  

Ardent Mills’ SafeGuard® Treatment & Delivery System allows you to update your existing products while maintaining the flavor, texture, appearance and performance that your production team and consumers expect.

It’s not just a product or a process, but a proprietary, comprehensive, integrated supplier solution that extends flour safety assurance from our plant to yours, assisting in protecting your brands and your business. SafeGuard® flour and ingredients are prepared in a closed system, from treatment, to processing and delivery. In this proprietary process, ingredients are bulk heat treated, and provide a third-party validated micro-reduction. Once the flour undergoes heat treatment, sanitized pipes and bins transport the flour to packaging. This unique process exceeds common flour-milling standards and reduces microbial risk without the need for chemical treatments or ionizing radiation. 

The cost of not delivering flour in ready-to-eat applications is too high to ignore, and no one wants to lose customers over food safety or product quality.  

When asked if consumers would no longer buy a product again if it had been related to a food poisoning event, 37% stated they would not buy from the brand again*. Buying heat treated flour with validated pathogen reduction can help reduce flour related food safety risks from pathogens in ready to eat flour, doughs, frozen pizza, bakery mixes, infant formulas, and seasoning blends. 

When half of consumers believe flour is safe to eat before cooking or baking** it’s essential to make sure the flour in your products delivers on these expectations. No one wants to be a statistic on the USDA's latest food safety data reports. Ingredients from the SafeGuard® Treatment & Delivery System not only provide a heat treatment solution for ready-to-eat applications, but they deliver acceptable gluten functionality, flour absorption, starch quality and enzyme activity across numerous applications - even in bread! 

It’s time to talk about flour safety, and how to ensure your products deliver what consumers want.   

*Source 1: 2016 Ardent Mills Flour Food Safety at Home and Restaurants Summary 

**Source 2: 2016 Ardent Mills Flour Food Safety at Home and Restaurants Summary