E-Malt.com News article: USA: International Malting Co. Announces Great Falls Plant

HELENA, Mont. -- International Malting Co., LLC, informed Governor Judy Martz on Tuesday, January 21, 2002, that it will start construction in May on a 16-million-bushel (0.25-million-metric tons) malting plant on the north side of Great Falls.

When completed, the plant will employ 34 people and will require the production of 20 million bushels (0.435 million metric tons) of malting barley from Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming and Idaho, according to David Brunette, corporate director of manufacturing operations for International Malting.

IMC, based in Milwaukee, Wis., is a worldwide company that has been in business since 1865. It presently operates four malting plants in the United States under the name of Froedtert Malt, and also operates malt plants in Canada, France, New Zealand and Australia.

"I am absolutely elated that IMC has chosen Great Falls as the home of its new western U.S. malting plant, and I want to thank the large number of state, local and private officials who have worked hard for the past 16 months to make this happen," says Gov. Martz, who announced the decision in her annual State of the State Address to a joint session of the Montana Legislature.

Brunette says IMC first began looking at possible sites in Montana in 2001. The site on the north side of Great Falls is adjacent to the proposed NorthWestern Energy plant. A number of synergies exist between the two companies, he says, including the required electricity for the malting plant and heat that can be used in the malting process.

The plant will require approximately 32 truckloads of malting barley per day from northcentral Montana, plus an equal amount of barley arriving to the facility by rail. The plant will ship just over 60 rail cars of malt per
week to brewers and other malt customers in the western United States and to exporters on the West Coast.

To obtain the 16 million bushels of malting grade barley that the plant requires, IMC will purchase an estimated 20 million bushels of barley from farmers. Montana growers sold 7.5 million bushels of barley to all malting companies in 2001, according to a recent survey from the Montana Agricultural Statistics Service.

"We have worked hard to attract malting companies because we want Montana to be the malt capital of the world. We have the climate, the soils, the location and the motivated growers necessary to make this happen," says Ralph Peck, director of the Montana Department of Agriculture.

At the current $4 per bushel price, the malting barley processed at the Great Falls plant will have a $64 million impact in grower sales alone, Peck notes. Prior to recent drought years, Montana was the second largest barley producer in the United States. The IMC plant will provide the market assurance to develop additional growing areas and new irrigation, he says.

Brunette says the decision on a location came down to Great Falls or Cheyenne, Wyo. Great Falls was closer to barley producers, sitting on the southern edge of the Golden Triangle growing area.

IMC supplies malt to some of the largest brewing companies worldwide, including Miller Brewing and Anheuser-Busch in the United States and Grupo Modelo in Mexico. Malt also is used in foods such as breads, malted milk and candy. Byproducts from the malting process are used for a protein-rich animal feed.

The project would not have been possible without the assistance of a large number of people, Brunette says. Among them are the Montana Department of Agriculture; the Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity; the Departments of Commerce, Natural Resources, Environmental Quality, Transportation and Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and local economic development including the City of Great Falls and Cascade County.


23 January, 2003