One Word for Sorghum?
Antoine Bernabé is CEO of Moulins Pyrénéens, a milling branch of Arterris, an agricultural cooperative. The company is very present in Occitanie and the PACA region and it comprises two milling operations: Toulousaine des Farines, near Narbonne, and Minoterie Mercier Capla, in Ariège.
Thanks to the massive mills of the Toulousaine des Farines, Moulins Pyrénéens have a wheat crushing capacity of 600 tons a day and a customer catchment area that runs from the Basque country to the Italian border.
The mill manager answered enthusiastically to our key question: how would you describe sorghum in one word?
« Sustainable »
« A Great Option »
“We cannot deny the current global warming”, Antoine Bernabé explains. In ten, twenty years, we may not be able to grow wheat in the Toulouse area any more – and sorghum is an excellent alternative: it is very rustic, low in energy, input, and water, needs, and these are all considerable assets. Otherwise, sorghum is a multi-usage crop: it can be used both in the baking industry (pizza, tortillas, bread, etc) and in the kitchen. A good friend of mine who is a chef has recently conceived a course based on sorghum and served it in a two Michelin-star restaurant!”.
Towards a Hybrid-type of Eating
“We have already tried to make sorghum bread and risottos, for instance – and the results have been conclusive. In 2023-2024, we will try to develop a hybrid type of flour, a blend of wheat, sorghum, and perhaps pulses. I think tomorrow’s food will be a hybrid one and we will need to develop products that are as elaborated as possible, as well as tasty, of course – it is very important!
The main problem sorghum has today is the preconceived idea that it is fit only for the animal feeding industry, whereas in Asia and Africa, people have been eating it for a very long time! I am convinced that sorghum has a very bright future.”