Whole Wheat and Wholemeal Flour Export from Russia

Whole Wheat and Wholemeal Flour Export from Russia: A Buyer's Guide

In whole wheat flour wholesale tenders, the specification usually decides the winner before the price is opened. Buyers of wholemeal flour from Russia are not only comparing extraction rates and granulation — they are checking whether the supplier can document the mill, the laboratory method and the export registration behind each lot. This guide explains how JSC Tabunsky Elevator (brand Grana), Altai, Russia, approaches whole grain flour export, and what a buyer should verify before shipping.

Start with terminology, because tenders use it inconsistently

The same product is sold under four names, and the differences matter when a contract is drafted.

Term used in tenders	Main markets	What it normally specifies
Whole wheat flour	North America, Gulf, WFP-style tenders	Flour milled from the cleaned whole wheat kernel, with bran and germ retained in the same proportion as the grain
Wholemeal flour	UK, EU, CIS	The same principle, but granulation is often specified separately (fine, medium, coarse)
Whole grain flour	Global retail and health-sector buyers	Emphasises that all kernel fractions are present; may be stone-ground or roller-milled
Brown flour	UK and Commonwealth trade usage	Often a high-extraction flour (typically below 100%) — not automatically wholemeal, so the extraction rate must be written into the spec

Because “brown flour supplier” and “wholemeal flour supplier” can mean different products in different markets, the practical first step is to fix three points in writing: extraction rate, granulation, and the analytical parameters the buyer will accept at discharge. Everything else follows from those.

Why the Altai production base matters for consistency

Altai Krai is one of Russia's established spring and winter wheat regions, and a mill located inside a grain-growing area shortens the distance between harvest intake and milling. For export buyers, the value is not the geography itself but what it makes possible: control of a single site from grain intake through milling, laboratory release and packing.

Full-cycle milling means the plant does not buy semi-processed stock and re-pack it. Wheat is received, cleaned, conditioned and milled on site, so the identity of a lot can be traced back to the grain that entered the elevator.

Milling capacity and storage

• Full-cycle mill with a capacity of approximately 300 tonnes per day
• Elevator storage of 32,000 tonnes, which allows wheat lots to be held and blended before milling
• Single-site traceability from intake to finished bag

For a buyer placing repeat orders, the combination of milling capacity and elevator volume is the mechanism that supports lot-to-lot consistency, rather than a promise written into a brochure.

Laboratory and test bakery

Product is released against the mill's own laboratory results, and the on-site test bakery allows flour behaviour to be observed in dough rather than only in a specification sheet. In practice, buyers usually ask for the standard set: moisture, ash, protein, gluten quality and falling number, together with a baking result where the end use is bread. The quality workflow is described on the /en/quality page.

Export compliance: what is checked before a contract is signed

Documentation is the part of whole grain flour export that most often delays first shipments. The mill's export position is built around the following:

• CIFER registration in the GACC (General Administration of Customs of China) import food enterprise registration system
• GACC accreditation as an exporter to China
• EAEU conformity — flour produced under TR CU 021/2011 food safety requirements, labelled under TR CU 022/2011
• Flour to UN WFP standard, relevant where the end buyer is a humanitarian or institutional programme
• Destination-specific certificates — the final document set is agreed per contract and per country of import

Buyers can review the export profile at /en/export before requesting documents for a specific tender.

The China route: 0% duty on flour and bran

For shipments to China, the mill's accreditation status is combined with a duty position of 0% on flour and bran. Wheat flour falls under HS 1101 and wheat bran under HS 2302.30, so a Chinese importer comparing landed cost against other origins should include the duty line in the calculation — it changes the delivered price materially on bulk volumes. A more detailed note on the Chinese market is available at /en/china.

Matching the product to the end use

Before quoting, the mill asks what the flour will be used for. Whole wheat flour for pan bread, for flatbread, for blends with white flour, and for bran-enriched formulations each pull the specification in a different direction — granulation and bran particle size in particular. The product range and the application notes are set out at /en/products.

How to move forward

If you are sourcing whole wheat flour wholesale, wholemeal flour from Russia, or a brown flour supplier for a specific tender, the fastest route is to send the specification you will be evaluating against: extraction rate, granulation, analytical limits, packaging, destination port and required documents. The mill's team will confirm what can be matched and what needs discussion.

To start, leave a request via the form on the site — /en/contacts — and include the destination country and the tender reference if there is one.