Take a deep breath. Do you smell the fresh air with a hint of wheat as it rustles in a nearby field? Or perhaps you catch a bit of sweetness as our industries produce delectable packaged food mixes that you’ll soon see on your grocery store shelves. You are in the Batter Capital of the World, and life is sweet.

Hopkinsville is located in the second largest geographic county in the commonwealth of Kentucky, and we bet you noticed the gorgeous sprawling farmland as you drove into town. Our fertile land grows abundant crops thanks to the dedicated farmers, many of whom run multi-generation agriculture operations across Christian County. But farmland is found across the Midwest, what makes Hopkinsville special? We thought you’d never ask. Here in Hopkinsville, we grow soft red winter wheat, which is ideal for specialty products such as sponge cakes, cookies, crackers and other confectionery products, as it adds value to the miller and baker as a blending wheat.

Once harvested, our local wheat heads to our two local flour mills, Hopkinsville Milling Company – the oldest industry in Hopkinsville, and Siemer Milling Company, which mills two million pounds of flour EVERY day.

Once at the flour mills, the grain takes a few different paths, Hopkinsville Milling Company puts that flour (and cornmeal) into nostalgic packaging and sends it straight to the grocery store shelves, and they’ve been doing it since 1906.

Siemer Milling Company flour heads to destinations in bulk quantities. As a provider to many hotel and restaurant chains, the smallest quantity of flour available for purchase from Siemer Milling is 50-pound bags. However, if you happen to be located directly next door and connected to this grain grinding industry by a pipe that delivers daily flour drops, the quantities increase dramatically.

In fact, 520,000 lbs of flour are delivered daily from Siemer Milling Company to the Krusteaz Company for use in food mix manufacturing.

After arriving at Continental Mills through food grade pipes, the flour is used to create over 451 different products that we bet you’ve added to your grocery store check-out at some point in time.

Globally-recognizable products like Ghirardelli Brownie Mix, Krusteaz mixes (including pancake, waffle and muffin mix), Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuit mix, Cracker Barrel biscuit mix, Trader Joe’s brand mixes, Target Market Pantry mixes, Kroger brand mixes and Great Value brand mixes are all created in Batter Capital of the World. That’s pretty sweet, huh?

Ways to Explore the Batter Capital

Take time to explore our official food partners of the Batter Capital and create your food tour through the city, check out our quarterly farm tours, stand in awe of our 12-foot-tall wheat display downtown, learn more about the history of agriculture and industry at the Pennyroyal Area Museum’s Plow to Plate exhibit and stop in the Visitors Center to get a picture in our four-foot Batter Bowl and visit the official Batter Capital gift shop!