Industrial milling for food & ingredients.
Hygienic stainless construction, fast clean-down between batches, full traceability — the THOR line for food plants is built around your wash-down SOP and your QA team's documentation.
Mills built to come apart in 15 minutes.
Food size reduction lives or dies on two things: cleanability between SKU changeovers, and consistency of particle size across a 24/7 line. THOR mills for food are designed around both — quick-release rotor access, full stainless flow paths, and locked-down d50 control.
- Installed base
- 140+ mills
- Changeover
- 15min
- PSD range
- 20 – 5000µm
- Throughput
- 0.1 – 25t/h
Where the mill sits in your line.
A typical food powder line. THOR can supply just the mill, or integrate the full grinding island — feed handling, classification, dust extraction and packaging interface.
Raw material → Packed product
- Step 01
Receiving
Big-bag or silo intake. Magnetic + sieve protection.
- Step 02
Pre-feed
Rotary valve sets the feed rate into the mill.
- Step 03
THOR mill
Impact, attrition or jet — sized to your PSD target.
Our scope - Step 04
Classify
Air classifier separates fines from oversize for re-circulation.
- Step 05
Pack
Bagging, FIBC or bulk-out to upstream silo.
Most customers come to us with steps 03 and 04 in scope — THOR designs both as a single integrated grinding island, sharing the same control HMI as the rest of your factory.
Food-grade by default.
Every THOR mill specified for food duty ships in SS304 or SS316L with crevice-free welds, polished contact surfaces and tool-free disassembly for clean-down. EHEDG / 3-A surface roughness on request. We supply the swab-sample procedure and the cleaning validation report alongside the machine.
Materials we run every week.
Spices (chilli, pepper, cumin), sugar (white, raw, brown), cocoa, lactose, plant proteins (pea, soy, fava), cereals, salt, citric acid, baking ingredients. We have pilot data on most of these — request the report when you scope your project.
Allergens, swab tests, dedicated lines.
When the same mill processes multiple recipes, cross-contamination control is the project. Tool-free changeover, dedicated screens / hammers, and a documented swab procedure all ship as part of the THOR delivery for shared lines. For dedicated allergen lines we recommend a single-product machine — talk to us about lifetime cost trade-offs.
Which mill for food.
Pin Mill for crystalline brittle feeds (sugar, lactose). Hammer Mill for fibrous and high-throughput duty (spices, cereals). Air Classifier downstream when you need a tight upper-cut and a coarse re-grind stream.
Four lines we've commissioned this year.
Each is backed by a documented pilot run with particle size distribution, energy and microbial data.
- [ Photo — Spice grinding line ]Spice
Black pepper grinding
Flavor-locked grinding with cryogenic feed assist — oils stay in the product, dust stays out of the room.
- Target d50
- 180 µm
- Throughput
- 1.2 t/h
- Mill
- Pin Mill
- [ Photo — Icing sugar line ]Sugar
Icing & confectioner's sugar
White sugar reduced to icing-grade with integrated anti-caking dosing and full ATEX-22 zoning.
- Target d50
- 45 µm
- Throughput
- 3.5 t/h
- Mill
- Hammer Mill
- [ Photo — Plant protein line ]Protein
Pea protein fractionation
Air-classifying mill that splits starch from protein at d50 = 25 µm. Two product streams off one feed.
- Target d50
- 25 µm
- Throughput
- 0.8 t/h
- Mill
- Jet + Classifier
- [ Photo — Cocoa line ]Cocoa
Cocoa nib → fine powder
Low-fat-loss impact milling. Inlet temperature managed below 35 °C to protect flavor compounds.
- Target d50
- 75 µm
- Throughput
- 0.6 t/h
- Mill
- Pin Mill
Built to come apart. Built to pass audit.
Every food-duty THOR mill ships with a documentation pack covering materials of construction, surface finish, weld inspection and CIP cycle validation.
Hygienic design
Built to EHEDG and 3-A Sanitary design principles.
- SS316L wetted parts
- Ra ≤ 0.8 µm surface finish
- Crevice-free welds
- Self-draining geometry
CIP / SIP ready
Spray balls, drain points and temperature sensors integrated.
- Two-zone spray coverage
- Recipe-based wash cycles
- Riboflavin test pack included
- Steam-in-place option
Tool-free access
Quick-release clamps. Rotor inspection in 15 minutes.
- Tri-clover style connections
- Hinged inspection door
- No threaded fasteners in product zone
- Color-coded gaskets
Documentation pack
Audit-ready paperwork shipped with every machine.
- Material certificates (3.1)
- Weld inspection reports
- FAT & SAT protocols
- Declaration of conformity
Allergen flush protocol
Validated changeover procedure between allergen and non-allergen runs.
- Defined flush volume
- Swab-test sampling points
- HMI-guided checklist
- Audit log export
ATEX & explosion safety
Dust-handling for sugar, flour and starch lines.
- Zone 20 / 21 / 22 ratings
- Explosion venting
- Spark detection
- N₂ inerting option
Validation pack
IQ / OQ / PQ ready, with vendor support during commissioning.
- IQ / OQ / PQ scripts
- Calibration records
- Operator training package
- Spare-parts master list
Typical particle size targets.
A reference d50 by product type. Your spec sets the final mill choice — these are starting points.
d50 by product · log scale 10 µm → 5 mm
- Black pepper150 – 250 µm
- Icing sugar30 – 80 µm
- Cocoa powder50 – 120 µm
- Pea protein20 – 50 µm
- Rice flour75 – 180 µm
- Coffee (espresso)200 – 350 µm
- Salt (table)300 – 500 µm
- Whole grain (coarse)1 – 3 mm
We ran a 28-day side-by-side against our incumbent on the icing-sugar line. The THOR unit hit d50 within ±4 µm across 84 shifts and the wash-down dropped from 45 to 18 minutes. That was the buy.
Recommended mills for this sector.
The platforms we most often deploy here. Each has documented pilot data on the materials above.