Helena Stenström’s gaze wanders across Berte Qvarn’s milling headquarters in Slöinge, located between Malmö and Gothenburg in the south of Sweden. On the right, adjacent to the Suseån river, stands the picturesque brick building where her family started milling wheat a mere 14 generations ago. The old hydroelectric power station is testament to their drive for sustainability and will soon be modernized to supply up to 40 percent of the energy needs for the milling operations. To its left towers the modern wheat mill with the storage silos, where Sweden’s oldest family-owned company processes 70,000 tons of wheat per year. On the far left, slightly elevated, the state-of-the-art oat processing plant catches her eye.
“These three buildings tell our company’s history in a nutshell ¬ the stable business, and the knowledge in wheat milling that has been passed from generation to generation. And then there’s the oat processing plant, not even two years old, which allows us to add another product to our range, to increase our expertise, and, last but not least, to take a major step towards achieving our sustainability goals of reducing our footprint by 50 percent by 2030,” she explains.