For years, we’ve relied on colour sorters to clean oats ahead of milling — and, in some cases, during the milling process itself to push the purity bar even higher. When you’re trying to meet gluten-free standards, even a single barley kernel in a batch of oats can be a deal breaker. And frankly, that’s always been the hardest part: getting the barley out.
Barley and oats are incredibly similar. In fact, when you start sizing your oats — pulling out the small ones, the short ones — they start looking even more like barley. You lose one more point of contrast. One less thing for the sorter to latch onto. That made separation difficult slower, and sometimes frustrating.
Until now.
We’ve been working closely with Cimbria, and credit where credit is due: they’ve totally shifted what’s possible. They came to us and said, “We think we’ve got something.” And they were right. This machine doesn’t just draw a finer line between barley and oats — it redraws the whole map.
Previously, we had to use an entirely different machine with a different kind of sensing technology — not visible light, not traditional infrared — to catch that last bit of barley. And even then, it was still a workaround. Not integrated. Not seamless.
Now? We’ve demonstrated in our lab — and with customers — that we can do it all in one pass. Better. Cleaner. Simpler.
We’re starting to present this to millers, and the interest is strong. Of course, turning interest into purchase orders takes time. People need to be sure. But we’re on the path — and we’re committed to walking it, one test and one demo at a time.
From a customer standpoint, the biggest gain is clear: better performance. If you’re making gluten-free oats, this is the tool that makes your life easier. You’re not sweating test results. You’re not taking financial hits on rejected lots. You’ve got a purer product, a stronger brand, and a smoother process.
That’s huge — not just for the people with real gluten sensitivities who rely on these products, but also for the manufacturers who need to protect their reputations and bottom lines.
And then there’s the operational side. For someone building a new milling facility from scratch, this is a no-brainer. Fewer machines, simpler flow, cleaner output. Even for existing systems, I think the performance bump will be enough to drive some upgrades.
Finally, there’s this idea of layered protection. In gluten-free processing, you don’t just check once and call it a day. You build redundancy into the system. Multiple checkpoints. Multiple failsafes. That’s how you make the process robust.
But when your frontline sorter gets better — much better — that reduces the downstream burden. Fewer rechecks. Less double handling. Maybe even fewer machines. And that, long-term, makes a real difference in both cost and confidence.
We’re not done yet. But we’re well on our way.
