AN international company is set to double its malting capacity in SA with a malthouse in Cavan re-opening mid-year, sourcing grain from the state's growers.
The site, previously under the Cargill umbrella, was idled in 2015 and was one of the seven plants sold to giant French farmer co-operative Axereal in November 2019.
The grain co-op's Boortmalt division is the world's biggest barley maltster with a malt output of three million tonnes a year.
Boortmalt Asia-Pacific regional managing director Ian Maccan said the 77,000 tonne capacity of this plant would match their existing capacity at the Port Adelaide site and essentially double their output in SA.
He said the expansion was driven by customer demand.
"The plant will export malt from SA to South East Asia, Africa, the Pacific Islands and South America," he said.
Mr Maccan said there would be extensive upgrades made to the Cavan site, in part to get it operating again, but also to improve its sustainability, efficiency and quality, with food safety upgrades and better automation control and 10 new jobs.
"Before the end of the year, we plan to rehabilitate the storage silos and cleaning plants," he said.
"In January 2022, the malt house will be fully operational with the capability to produce, store and pack malt ready for direct supply to our business partners."
He said sustainability was a big goal with this new site helping them to reducing Boortmalt's carbon footprint by reducing logistics emissions due to shorter distances in transporting barley and malt to end users.
Mr Maccan said the company would be active in the market place at harvest time, sourcing barley to meet their increased requirements.
But he said they would also be working with farmer groups to collaborate in regenerative farming programs in the region to assure sustainable barley supply.
He said this was an important subject for the company, with it recognising the need to ensure a sustainable barley supply into the future.
He said working alongside farmers was something they had been doing in Europe but was a relatively new program in Australia.
Start the day with all the big news in agriculture. Sign up here to receive our daily Stock Journal newsletter.
Elizabeth Anderson
Editor of Stock Journal.
Editor of Stock Journal.
