Ardent Mills, the premier flour milling and ingredient company, hosted the grand opening of its state-of-the-art Ardent Mills Innovation Center (AMIC). Located at the company headquarters at 1875 Lawrence Street in downtown Denver, Colo., the AMIC features lab-sized flour mills, a wheat quality and bake lab, culinary test kitchen and chef's demonstration area. It is believed to be the only one of its kind in North America.

The facility includes:

• Flour Research Room: Showcasing Ardent Mills’ industry expertise and unique small-scale milling equipment used for milling flour from a variety of hard and soft wheat.

• R&D Applications Lab: Provides the setting, resources and expertise for working side-by-side with customers to help turn inspiration into innovation in the commercial product development realm.

• Analytical Lab: Where Ardent Mills’ team of experts conduct wet chemistry and dough rheology testing to help the product development cycle run smarter and more efficiently.

• Bake Lab: For experimenting with the baking process using refined and whole wheat flours and creating a variety of breads with our expert team and cutting-edge industry technology.

• Culinary Center: Developing culinary gold standards to support customer innovation, create new ingredient applications and serve multiple industries demonstrating the on-trend power of grains in menus and at retail.

Ardent Mills executives Dan Dye, CEO, and Bill Stoufer, COO, greeted the grand opening crowd of customers, vendors, employees and journalists. Kent Juliot, vice president of Research, Quality and Technical Solutions, also was on hand to answer questions about food safety and research.

About Ardent Mills
As the premier flour-milling and ingredient company, Ardent Mills’ vision is to be the trusted partner in nurturing its customers, consumers and communities through innovative and nutritious grain-based solutions. Ardent Mills’ operations and services are supported by more than 40 flour mills and bakery mix facilities along with a specialty bakery and Mobile Innovation Center, all located in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico.

Deeply rooted in communities throughout North America, Ardent Mills is headquartered in Denver, Colo., and employs more than 100 certified millers, generating billions of dollars of economic activity. Ardent Mills employs more than 2,400 people company wide. The company's product portfolio of more than 1,200 flours includes traditional wheat flours, multigrain blends of organic flour and gluten-free grain products.

To learn more about Ardent Mills, visit ardentmills.com.