Some history

Kensington has a long history of flour milling, as detailed in the ‘Kensington & Flour Milling Heritage Precinct’ section of the Melbourne Planning Scheme:

In the 1880s several new mills were built on the trunk railways including James Gillespie’s Kensington Roller Flour Mill of 1886-7, Kimpton’s Eclipse Hungarian Roller Flour mills of 1887, and Thomas Brunton’s Australian Flour Mills in 1893-4. Brokhoff biscuits located further south, was also built around 1890 with the intervening space filled with various stores and warehouses serving to milling and baking trade. James Minifie & Co (former head miller at Dight’s Falls Mill and Kempton’s) built his own Victoria Roller Flour Mill in 1906-7 in South Kensington.

With the Kimpton’s mill…

Allied Mills photo

Developing into the flour mill operated by Allied Pinnacle today.

Kimpton’s original mill was burnt out and rebuilt in 1904 and became known as the Kimpton No. 1 Mill, until closed in 1971. The Gillespie mill was bought by Kimpton in 1904 following the liquidation of Gillespie’s Victorian interests, becoming Kimpton No. 2 Mill. It was refitted in 1913, closed in 1976 and demolished in 1982.

The Kimpton No. 3 mill was built in 1927 on the corner of Elizabeth and Arden Street. A merger of three prominent milling firms created Kimpton Minifie McLennan Pty Ltd in the 1960s, which was bought out by Allied Mills in 1981, then Goodman Fielder. As a result, a new mill was erected north of the silos in the 1990s.

Moving grain by train

Grain is grown across Western Victoria.

Being moved by truck from farm to silo.

Then loaded into trains.

Then off to the city.

Headed through the countryside.

Until the train enters Melbourne.

Grain trains take the freight tracks past South Kensington station.

Until they reach North Melbourne, where the engines have to run around to the other end of train.

With that done, it’s just a short trip over to Kensington station.

The train stops in the platform.

And is then pushed back into the flour mill siding.

The wagons are then pushed through the unloading shed.

Two wagons at a time.

With the grain being unloaded between the tracks via bottom discharge doors.

Until the entire train is done.

Once the train is empty, it’s time to change the points.

Then push the train back out onto the main line.

Then change ends, back to North Melbourne, change ends a second time, and finally back to the country for another load.

And all this while sharing the tracks with suburban trains on the Craigieburn line.

What is the grain turned into?

In 2011 Allied Mills described their operations at Kensington in a submission to the City of Melbourne for the Arden-Macaulay Structure Plan.

The Allied Mills Site has been an operational flour mill since 1887. Allied Mills manufactures and distributes milling based products including but not limited to:

a) flours for bread, cake, pastry, biscuits, noodle and culinary applications;
b) premixes for bread, cake, donut and culinary applications; and
c) specialty meals, semolinas and brans.

The composition of the flour milling industry has changed drastically over the last century. In the 1870s there were 160 flour mills in Victoria which has now been reduced to three. Allied Mills owns and operates eight flour mills nationally, located in each Australian state. In Victoria, the sites are based in Kensington and Ballarat, with Kensington being one of the largest Australian sites and representing approximately one fifth of its total operations. It is therefore strategically essential to Allied Mills’ operations.

Allied Mills is an integral component of the Australian flour milling industry. Approximately 90% of the Australian flour milling industry is comprised of three major companies of broadly equal market share. These are Allied Mills, George Weston Foods and Manildra. Allied Mills presently services the vast majority of all multinational food manufacturer flour requirements in Australia, most of whom are common Australian household names. Further, Allied Mills holds a majority portion of the bulk flour market and significant portions of both the bagged flour market and bakery mix market.

By 2017 Allied Mills was processing 800,000 tonnes of wheat and speciality grains a year into flour and other products across their operations.

And how many trains?

Back in 2017 grain trains were visiting Kensington three times a week, each train made up of 20 wagons, each loaded with 55 tonnes of grain – or 3300 tonnes of grain a week.

Compare this how much grain a truck can move – between 16 and 65.6 tonnes – or the equivalent of 50+ trucks driving through suburban Kensington.

What about the future

With the warehouses around Kensington subject to the Arden-Macaulay Structure Plan, how long will a flour mill survive in the middle of a forest of apartments?

But a bigger problem is the sourcing of grain in Victoria following the Murray Basin Rail Project – flagged as an issue in 2017.

Exacerbating this issue is the change of rail gauge in western Victoria from broad gauge to standard gauge. As the rail line and siding at Kensington is broad gauge, the site can no longer accept grain delivery by train from western Victorian growers. This has the impact of reducing grain supply via rail and increasing grain delivery by truck increasing the truck movements at the site.

But there is a possible solution – transporting grain in containers.

Or the ‘nuclear’ option – relocation.

The Sydney experience

Until 2009 the Mungo Scott flour mill operated at Summer Hill in Sydney’s inner west, and was supplied by train by trains on the Rozelle goods line.

Until it was replaced by a new flour mill at Picton, south of Sydney, built on a greenfields site right beside the Main South railway line.

Which allows both the receival of grain and despatch of flour by rail.

I wonder how much longer until rising land values at Kensington leads to a similar move in Victoria?

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