The milling process includes grain cleaning, grinding, sifting for size and density, material handling, and packaging. In flour production, the largest single operating expense is the cost of electricity used to run the motors that power the grain conveyors and roller mills. Each bushel of wheat turned into flour requires 1.74 kWh. Dairy Minnesota dairy farms produced 9.41 billion pounds of milk in 1995, which makes Minnesota the number five dairy state in the nation. The state ranks third in milk used for making manufactured products such as butter and American cheese.
Electricity is the largest single energy expense for dairy operators.
At the farm level, dairy farmers used 376 million kWh of electricity, or 600 kWh per year for a typical cow producing 15,000 pounds of milk annually. The total diesel fuel requirements to transport raw milk to a bottling plant are estimated at 9.4 million gallons. Milk processors use energy to pump, pasteurize, homogenize, dry, package, and sanitize milk and milk products. The dairy industry is the largest user of natural gas and the second highest user of electricity among agricultural processors in the state. Thus, milk that is dried requires four times as much natural gas and nearly twice the electricity consumption of milk used for cheese making.