From barley to beer: our malting business
Renowned for the quality of its malt, Malteurop celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2021. Our advanced age does not, however, prevent us from looking to the future and pursuing our goal: to create ever more added value at every level of the value chain, and to develop on international markets in new regions to support our customers’ growth.
What is Malteurop’s business?
From malt houses at the end of our fields, to malt houses on the other side of the world
It’s no coincidence that Malteurop has become one of the world’s leading malt producers! Our region is a established stronghold of malting barley growers. Indeed, the first plant that cooperative farmers built to add value to their crops was a malt house. 60 years later, we have operations in the world’s three main barley growing regions: Canada, Europe and Australia.
Our plants in 14 countries around the world enable us to be extremely agile in meeting market demand and benefiting from growing demand for fermented beverages (beer as well as whiskey and bourbon) around the world and in Asia in particular. The success of craft beers also provides exciting growth prospects on many markets around the world. Our North American entity, “Malteurop Malting Company”, our “Farmer-maltsters” positioning in Europe, and our e-commerce platform are enabling us to grow on this fast-growing market segment.
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10%beers in the world brewed with our malt
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23industrial sites in 14 countries
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2,3Mtons of annual production capacity
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96%of the international revenue generated
Malteurop: New challenges and new regions
Reducing our plants’ CO2 emissions
Decarbonising our industrial processes is a major challenge and a key part of our sustainable development policy: M.A.L.T. The installation of more energy-efficient equipment and the switch to renewable energy is underway in the field with a solar farm being built on our site in Spain and innovative battery storage systems installed in our German plants.
Targeting low-carbon barley!
The experiments we are conducting in partnership with Heineken and the VIVESCIA Cooperative on how to cultivate low-carbon barley are also in line with our CSR/sustainable development policy. The strength of this programme is that it involves every link in the value chain: from the farmer and the storage company, to the maltster and the brewer. They have the same objectives: to change farming systems in order to reach carbon neutrality by increasing carbon sequestration in the soil , while continuing to provide brewers with the barley quality they expect. Our R&D teams are working to identify and select new barley varieties that are more resistant to climate change by conducting many field trials in the various countries we operate in. Other experiments are also taking place in Spain, Russia, Australia, and Mexico.
This new entity is part of a partnership with Heineken including a long-term supply contract. Beyond just the construction of the new plant, this project also includes Malteurop’s operational expertise and its ability to help partner-farmers provide the local malting barley required
The pandemic may have slowed the project down, but construction is well underway. The first batch of malt is expected to come off the production line in Meoqui in the summer of 2023. This malting plant has a capacity of: 120,000 tonnes per year, 70 jobs are planned when the malting plant is commissioned.
