International Sorghum and Millet Collaborative Research Support Program (INTSORMIL CRSP)
Date of this Version
10-1-2006
Document Type
Article
Citation
INTSORMIL Report No. 6, October 1, 2006
Abstract
Pan Rey, the “Bread King,” a large commercial bakery located at Quezaltepeque, El Salvador is testing sorghum flour as a substitute for wheat. The Pan Rey Bakery collaborates with the CENTA Food Technology Laboratory in a project to promote the use of sorghum flour in large bakeries. Many small, village level bakeries, such as the bakery of Clemencia Barrera in San Rafael Cedro, El Salvador (see INTSORMIL Report No. 5), have been using sorghum flour as a substitute for wheat for many years. However, use of sorghum flour on a large scale in the big commercial bakeries, such as Pan Rey, has not yet caught on. Why? The small village mills that produce sorghum flour for the small village bakeries do not produce sufficient volume to meet the requirements of bakeries such as Pan Rey. The larger mills only produce sorghum flour on contract with a bakery and thus costs per unit of sorghum flour produced are higher than wheat flour which is routinely produced on a large scale. If demand for sorghum flour increases, these costs will be lowered and sorghum will be more competitive with wheat flour.
CENTA (Centro Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria y Forestal) with INTSORMIL cooperation is conducting a project to promote the use of sorghum grain in the production of flour for the large commercial bakery industry. The CENTA sorghum breeding program in collaboration with the Food Technology Laboratory breeds sorghum varieties that produce sorghum flour with the physical and chemical charcteristics needed to replace imported wheat as a source of flour. Varieties of sorghum developed for human consumption by the CENTA/INTSORMIL program are RCV, SOBERANO, JOCORO and CENTA S-3. The CENTA Food Technnology group works closely with millers and bakers such as Pan Rey in providing guidance for the milling and baking process.