The name of the Mill & Folks brand may sound unfamiliar to many people, which is why we conducted a short interview with Miklos Veha, the founder of Naturtrade Hungary Ltd, which is the parent company of Mill & Folks Limited., Who gives a glimpse behind the scenes. We talked to him about where the company started and what plans he had for the future.
Tell us a little bit about the company, for those who have just become acquainted with the brand, to get a little insight into how Mill & Folks started.
The parent company itself was founded in 2014, after a conversation highlighting the shortage of a product on the market that is youthful, modern, and can be consumed by people with food allergies. In addition, there were few brands on the market that were of a good quality and affordable to everybody. Initially, we dealt with product packaging, which is making consumer packages from bulk. Of course, this has changed a lot over the years, it is no longer the main profile of the company.
My family was already involved in the production of flour in the early 1900s, at that time they were still transporting grain to the mill on a horse-drawn carriage and were able to supply far fewer families than they are now. Although I went in a slightly different direction after high school, because I went to the university of economics, where I chose to major in finance, but somehow, I felt that my journey would be completed with the production of flour. I asked my father to help me with this project, and to this day I remember how his eyes sparkled when he heard this question which he has been waiting for a long time. When I think about “breaking” a 4-generation tradition by believing in a different direction for my journey at that time, I understand that my parents were a little sad. Fortunately, their anticipation was not in vain; I returned to the roots. We soon started producing flour, which is the basis of our products to this day.
Why did your father choose to help you?
My father, Prof. Dr. Antal Veha PhD helped a lot. I could not have found a better specialist, as in addition to his experience in milling, he has written nearly 200 publications on the topics of grain, flour, and the milling industry, which are internationally recognized. We combined these with a love of grains to create an innovative technology that has been a huge step forward in the life of the company.
It’s a main characteristic of me that I’m always thinking of something new, something innovative, to see how it could make people’s everyday lives easier. What a person with a food sensitivity, a health-conscious or vegan may need is missing from the market .So, with the development team, we are always working to create something new to fill this gap. This is how our dry pasta was born, which, in addition to being gluten-free and vegan, is also high rich in fibre. But, like I said, we’re always working on some innovation, with us, life isn’t boring at all.
What are you the most proud of?
Mostly what we have achieved recently and where we are now. We make excellent products that are made by great, dedicated people. I am grateful to them for doing their job day in and day out with such care and attention. I am also proud that our brand is becoming better known and more popular and we are receiving more and more positive feedback from both our consumers and resellers.
I am also very pleased that we have more and more opportunities to implement our various ideas, which allows us to further expand our product range. I am also specially proud to grind our flours in our own mill and we can achieve a fine grain size like BL55 wheat flour. i could go on and on about how proud I am of everything, the interview may never end, but I have yet to highlight the fact that we make our pasta using our own Italian pasta machine.
A company should always look ahead. What are your plans for the future? Are there any specifics yet?
As I said, I’m always thinking over some innovation and our product developers are helping a lot with that. I can’t tell you anything specific, to put it a little bit mysteriously, but even this year we have some great news coming up, and I think it is worth the wait. Of course, in addition to the products, we also invest in technology. I see the future in mechanization, and I would like to move our production plant to a larger site in the future, where our products could be made in even more modern conditions. In addition to development, it is, of course, important for me to find environmentally friendly solutions. That is why we are working to reduce our ecological footprint and I would like to be able to expand our current 50-kilowatt solar fleet with additional solar panels in the future. This produces about 60,000 kWh for us, which covers roughly 80% of our annual energy needs. We want to start not only our power supply, but also our packaging in a much more environmentally friendly direction. So we want to use biodegradable materials in the near future.
There’s a long way to go for Mill & Folks this year. While you still have to wait for the big announcements, follow the Mill & Folks community pages to stay up to date with the latest news.
