Milling wheat is not a single product; it is a set of baking properties that a miller blends towards. A buyer who specifies only protein is specifying about a third of what matters. The four parameters that decide whether a parcel is useful are protein content, which sets the volume potential of the dough; gluten quantity and quality, which set how the dough behaves under mechanical work; falling number, which measures alpha-amylase activity and therefore whether the starch was degraded by rain before harvest; and test weight, which is a rough proxy for kernel soundness and flour yield. Ukrainian wheat is predominantly soft to medium-hard bread wheat, and the export trade sells it against these parameters at a stated tolerance, with price adjustment clauses for results between the target and the rejection limit. Understanding which parameter is adjustable and which is a hard reject is most of the commercial skill in buying it.
Grades, cuts and calibration
The working specification for European milling business typically calls for protein at or above 11.5 to 12.5 per cent, wet gluten in the low to middle twenties, a Hagberg falling number of at least 220 to 250 seconds and a test weight of 76 kilograms per hectolitre or better, with moisture at 14 per cent maximum and total impurities within roughly 2 per cent. Every one of those is trade practice rather than law, and every one of them has a defined reference method: moisture to ISO 712, test weight to ISO 7971, falling number to ISO 3093, protein by Kjeldahl or Dumas nitrogen with a stated conversion factor, wet gluten by the mechanical washing method. Naming the method is not pedantry; a near-infrared reading calibrated on a different wheat population and a Kjeldahl result on the same parcel can differ by enough to move the price. The second tier of parameters – Zeleny sedimentation, alveograph W value, gluten index, ash – is specified by millers who blend to a defined flour rather than buying to a generic grade. Damaged fractions are counted separately: broken, shrunken, sprouted, heat-damaged and insect-damaged kernels each carry their own tolerance, and sprouted kernels are the ones that pull the falling number down.
Seasonality and availability
Winter wheat dominates and is harvested from early July into August, north and west later than south and east. The parameter most exposed to weather is falling number: rain during the final ripening and harvest window triggers pre-harvest sprouting, alpha-amylase activity rises and the falling number falls, which can turn a milling parcel into a feed parcel within a fortnight. Protein is set earlier, by nitrogen management and by the grain filling conditions. After harvest, grain is dried where necessary and stored in silo, and quality drifts slowly rather than abruptly, so the practical question later in the season is which parcels a trader still holds against which parameter set, not whether wheat is available. New crop is usually offered as a forward position against a specification with tolerances, and the risk of a shortfall against falling number is the one that most often triggers a contractual price adjustment.
What the buyer checks at intake
- Sampling before anything else. Agree the sampling standard – GAFTA sampling rules or ISO 24333 – who draws the sample, how the sub-samples are combined and where the sealed retention sample is held.
- Moisture, test weight and falling number on the working sample, with the instrument calibration record available.
- Protein by the contracted method, and a note of whether the result is expressed on an as-is or a dry matter basis. The difference is roughly a full percentage point.
- Impurities separated and weighed by category: foreign matter, other grains, damaged kernels, sprouted kernels, shrunken and broken.
- Live insect check on the load, plus the fumigation certificate where post-harvest treatment was applied.
- Mycotoxin analysis against the sampling requirements for mycotoxins, because a mycotoxin result is only as good as the sampling plan behind it.
- Smell of the load on opening. Musty, sour or heated notes indicate storage damage that no certificate has yet caught.
Where it is used
Industrial and craft flour milling is the primary destination, with the parcel blended against other origins to hit a flour specification rather than sold as a finished flour in its own right. Bakery groups that mill their own flour buy directly against a tighter parameter set, usually adding alveograph and gluten index. Parcels that miss falling number or test weight are diverted into feed, where the value is protein and energy and the baking parameters are irrelevant, which is why the spread between milling and feed wheat is the single most useful number to watch when assessing whether a harvest was good. Starch and gluten processing takes wheat on starch content and cleanliness rather than on baking behaviour. Semolina and pasta users buy durum, a different species and a different contract, and should not be offered soft wheat against a durum specification.
Standards and routes
Wheat moves in bulk by vessel from the Black Sea and Danube ports, by rail and road to Poland, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia, and in containers with liners for smaller parcels and for buyers without silo intake. Entry into the Union requires a phytosanitary certificate for the consignment under Regulation (EU) 2016/2031 and a CHED for plants and plant products in TRACES NT, and most parcels also travel with an independent certificate of quality and weight. See the bulk logistics guide for the mode comparison.