Botanical facts

All the different types of millet belong to the grass family. The following types are most commonly used for processing:

- Proso millet, also known as white, common or hog millet
- Foxtail millet
- Sorghum millet

Millet products commonly available in Switzerland are generally made with proso millet. Our millet is mostly imported from the USA (Dakota). The growing conditions there are perfect, i.e. the weather is mostly sunny and warm. The period between sowing and harvest (growing season) is only 60 to 80 days. There are other large areas where millet is grown, such as Africa, Argentina, in the Balkan and all over Asia. Everywhere, in other words, where the climate is too dry to grow rice, is suitable for millet cultivation.

Processing

Just as with other cereals, millet lends itself well to a number of processing methods. Our registered golden millet (Goldhirse®) is made with hulled, polished millet which has its bitterness removed with a specially developed method. Our Zwicky millet flakes are made with the cleaned and hulled millet. You might be interested to know that all the valuable nutrients in Zwicky millet flakes have been stabilised with a special, mechanical method (the Kollath method), which also gives them a prolonged shelf life. Normally, processed millet products lose their nutritional value and become rancid quite quickly.

Comparison of millet with other types of cereal

Nutritional Analysis

The differences shown in comparisons of the different analytical values are quite considerable. This may be due to a number of different causes. It is often the case that there is no exact information available for millet, either proso or foxtail millet.

Here are the results from our own analysis:
Regional Laboratories, Frauenfeld, Switzerland

* for dry matter

The Swiss Food Directory lists the following nutritional values: