Robinsons Flaking Mill for producing Kellogg's Cornflakes and other cereal products

Flaking mill, made by Thomas Robinsons & Sons of Rochdale, c.1960.

This corn flaking mill was used to make breakfast cereals at the Kellogg’s factory in Trafford Park, Manchester. It was made around 1965 by Thomas Robinson and Sons of Rochdale, a major manufacturer of corn mills and woodworking machinery.

Developed in 1890s Michigan by the brothers John and William Kellogg, Kellogg’s Cornflakes were introduced to Britian in 1922. In response to their growing popularity, Kellogg’s opened a factory at Trafford Park in 1938 to supply Britain, which became the largest cereal factory in Europe.

This flaking mill was one of 40 machines of this type at Trafford Park, which were at the heart of a complex system of food production. Kernels of corn, cooked elsewhere in the factory, dropped through a chute into the mill, where a pair of rollers squashed them flat into flakes. The flakes fell onto conveyors that took them to ovens for toasting into Cornflakes, or to other machines to make Frosties or Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. Between 1965 and 2026, when the factory closed, the mill rolled about 186,000 tons of corn – the equivalent of over 2.5 trillion cornflakes.