Russia: Baltika Breweries wants to switch to locally grown malting barley only

Russia’s leading beer maker Baltika Breweries intends to cover its entire malting barley needs with domestically produced barley, company president Isaak Sheps was quoted as saying by RBC-Rostov.

At the moment, only 30% of the company’s barley needs are sourced domestically. Baltika will work on increasing this share through an agriculture project with farmers in various regions of the country, Mr. Sheps said.

The CEO also did not rule out closing of some of the company’s 10 breweries in Russia, though he did not specify which of them may finally be closed. He said that as per the company’s forecasts Russia’s beer market may decline by 7-8% if the best scenario happens, but as per the most negative expectations and if the PET-bottles ban is approved by the government, the fall may be between 20-40%.

26 September, 2014