Australia: Australian barley industry will have a national trademark for its malting barley

The Australian barley industry will now have a national trademark for its malt barley with Barley Australia launching Assured Quality for Australian malting barley, Farmonline reported April 30.

Its an attempt to consolidate the strong reputation for quality enjoyed by Australian malt barley.

Barley Australia chair David Thomas said the trademark had been developed in close consultation with industry.

It is not a new quality assurance (QA) system, rather an overarching quality framework that integrates existing quality systems in the Australian barley supply chain from storage provider to customer.

The Barley Australia Assured Quality trademark provides confirmation the barley has been subject to four key processes before being marketed:

• Good operational practices in relation to storage and handling, segregation, processing, quality testing, monitoring and transport.

• Compliance with food safety standards.

• Traceability.

• Guarantee the barley is an accredited malting variety.

Members of Barley Australia comprise all Australian maltsters (ADM, Joe White Maltings, Kirin Australia, and Barrett Burston Malting Company) and the three major coarse grain marketers (ABB Grain, GrainCorp and Grain Pool).

These companies collectively sell 80pc of the Australian malting barley crop either as processed malt or raw malting barley.

30 April, 2008