The Mill in Pruszcz Gdański is a unique place. A living museum, where you can buy flour and other baking accessories. And although the mill is considered historical, the century-old machinery is still working almost on overdrive. It is one of the few places in Poland with such a rich historical background that hasn’t changed its purpose during the years.
The mill in Pruszcz Gdański is located at Wojska Polskiego 42
The brick building is truly impressive and its appearance reminds of the medieval history of this place. The first building on the site of today’s mill was built in the second half of the 16th century by Michel Damnitz. Over the centuries, the mill was rebuilt several times and in 1920 it gained its final form. Today, the mill is managed by Adam Mańczak and Andrzej Starba. The company deals with processing cereals and trading in its products. There is also a laboratory in the mill, where the parameters of processed and finished products are tested.
“People are increasingly aware of what they eat. They care about quality and transparency of ingredient list. They are returning to the tradition of hand-made baked goods. More and more people are becoming convinced to bake their own bread. They buy flour from us because it’s produced locally in the traditional way, without additives or standardisation, which means it’s always different. Dough or bread made from such flour are unique,” says Joanna Starba of the Mill in Pruszcz Gdański.
How do you grind flour on 100-year-old machines?
Entering the mill takes you back 100 years. Inside, there is cleaning machinery, 4 pairs of two-roller mills, and sifters. The process that has been going on continuously since the last century requires that the grain first be cleaned before grinding. Then the grain goes to the mills and finally the grist goes to the sifters that separate the flour from the chaff. The roller mills we mentioned date back to the 1920s. The result is coarsely milled and ecological flour, which attracts amateurs of classic cooking to Pruszcz Gdański. Housewives say that such flour makes the best bread, and pierogi dough is second to none.
Products to use in your kitchen
Flour is the most valuable commodity here and you can get it in almost every possible form, but the mill offers a much broader range of products. Customers come here for groats, grains, seeds, bran, pulses, breadmaking ingredients, dried fruit and vegetables, cold-pressed oils, feeds, spices and wild bird seed, among other things. If you want to bake bread at home, the mill has all the products you need. Among new product is a variety of different tea and fruit juices. And of course that’s not all. If you want to know the full list of products, you have to visit the mill yourself.
“Our products have a simple composition. One visit to our shop is not enough to get to know all our treasures,” concludes Joanna Starba.