UK: Winter malting barley market receives boost from Gleadell Agriculture and Molson Coors

The market for winter malting barley in North Yorkshire has received a boost with a merchant’s creation of the Tadcaster Growers Club, Farmers Guardian reported on October, 1.

Gleadell Agriculture has teamed up with the largest UK brewer Molson Coors which already has various links with merchant/grower groups.

Sales director at Gleadell, Stuart Shand, said the direct link with the brewer was significant as Molson Coors was ‘a leading decision-maker in the UK malting barley market’.

He said the move had come about as Scottish maltsters were continuing to switch to spring barley for producing malts for whisky producers.

“The future for Yorkshire’s two biggest maltsters is to make distilling malt for whisky. This means using as close to 100 per cent spring barley for the malt,” said Mr Shand.

“Ten years ago these two maltings would probably have taken 75 per cent winter and 25 per cent spring, giving a usage of approximately 120,000 tonnes of winter barley. Next year the winter demand will probably plummet to a quarter of this level - indeed one of the maltings has said it intends to drop winter barley completely,” he said.

The significance of the decline in demand for winter varieties is, apart from the straightforward profitability of the crop, the problems the absence of the crop would create in some growers’ rotations.

Mr Shand said the contracts to be offered were only a few pounds below the contracts for spring varieties for distilling malts.

“The message to get across is, don’t just sow winter barley and then start looking round for a home for it – get a contract in the first place,” he said.

03 October, 2012