LAS VEGAS — After a year leading a burgeoning business at the nation’s largest flour miller, Kurt Long sees Ardent Mills’ emerging nutrition unit right where he wants it to be: in the sights of both customers and consumers.
Denver-based Ardent Mills in September 2024 hired Long as vice president of emerging nutrition to drive its long-term game plan for alternative grains. He previously led strategy and business development at Benson Hill and spent more than a dozen years at ADM, including leading its global specialty ingredient systems business.
“It’s one of our core growth platforms,” Long said of emerging nutrition in an interview at IBIE 2025 in Las Vegas in mid-September. “It comes back to, what are the challenges of our customers? We have to be in a place where we’re providing solutions. So it’s certainly a big focus for us, not only from a growth perspective, but it’s important that we have a broad pantry of solutions to support our customers in a dynamic environment, because their challenges are becoming more complex.”
Ardent Mills’ emerging nutrition portfolio spans everything from ancient grains to pulses, including organic and gluten-free offerings.
“Think of that as our product lines around organic wheat flour as well as our alternative grains, including all of the ancient grains and pulses, either intact and in flour,” Long said. “On top of that, it’s a lot of the innovative ingredient offerings, some of which we’re showcasing today here (at IBIE) — the Cocoa Replace and Egg Replace products. Certainly, we’re excited about the category and the space. I believe in the ingredients, primarily due to where they fit with consumer trends today. It provides a holistic nutrition view with nutrient density, while also maintaining the authenticity of ingredients that customers can recognize. A lot of the nutrition is inherent within the grain itself. So it’s a great place to be in.”
He noted, “We start with focusing on how can we provide better types of solutions to consumer problems, to help our customers address those challenges and enable their growth.”
In proprietary consumer research this year, Ardent Mills found that 92% of those surveyed seek healthier or better-for-you foods. Also cited among daily eating and dietary priorities were foods with specific nutritional benefits (92%), nutrient-dense/rich foods (91%), minimally processed foods (90%) and clean label foods (83%). Eighty-five percent of respondents, too, said ingredients play a direct role in the foods they choose to buy and eat.
Source: Sosland Publishing Co. ” data-description data-id=”8935″ style=”margin: 5px 0px 5px auto; height: 400px; display: block; float: none; vertical-align: top; text-align: right;” alt=”Kurt Long, vice president of emerging nutrition at Ardent Mills. ” data-uuid=”YTAtMTgxMzk1″ align=”right”>Long said, “We start with focusing on how can we provide better types of solutions to consumer problems, to help our customers address those challenges and enable their growth.”
Source: Sosland Publishing Co.
“Over the past year, we’ve conducted a lot of detailed analysis of where the consumer is going and the problems we need to solve with that market view, and then taking that back and making the right types of investments to make sure we’re supporting it with Ardent Mills scale on the front end,” Long said.
He pointed to Ardent Mills’ July acquisition of Stone Mill, a specialty cleaning facility in Richardton, ND. The addition brings Ardent Mills expertise in cleaning and processing certified gluten-free and identity-preserved grains, pulses and seeds — and from a strategic location.
“We’re really excited about where the pulse industry is going,” Long said. “Not only just the inherent nutrition of the pulses, but we have a really strong origination footprint. Our strength allows us to then expand and start to build value-add capabilities on top of that.”
Ardent Mills is particularly bullish about what chickpeas bring to the table for its customers and consumers, such as in flour, pasta and baked foods. Long referred to company research finding that, so far in 2025, 73% of consumers polled have changed their eating habits to foster health and wellness.
“Chickpeas check a lot of boxes as it relates to proteins and fibers,” he said. “Chickpeas also have a very nice sensory profile. So the combination of the nutrition plus the taste element and what we can do with functionality through the process is really compelling.”
Other grains that Ardent Mills sees having strong promise for future applications include lentils and sorghum.
“I think we just launched a lentil program out of Washington,” Long said. “And when you think about that blend of ingredients that goes into gluten-free mixes, for example, sorghum is another one that certainly is high up on the list.”
Long agreed that Ardent Mills’ emerging nutrition business plays well amid elevated public scrutiny of processed food products — including grain-based foods — stirred by debate around so-called “ultra-processed foods.”
“Consumers want authentic foods that they can recognize, and that’s where I feel emerging nutrition can play a pretty big part,” Long said. “Our ingredients are derived from grains that have natural nutritional value straight out of the ground. I talked about chickpeas, with their exceptional fiber and protein profile. You can look at sorghum and millet, which have a variety of these different, alternative grain ingredients. It’s up to companies like Ardent Mills to help our customers understand how you can apply these ingredients so that they’re more accessible for consumers who are demanding healthier ingredients.”
