UK: Multi-million pound expansion for malt house

Simpsons Malt Ltd, the private, family-owned maltster based in Berwick, has announced a multi-million pound expansion to their maltings in the town, The Journal reported May 23.

The company, originally from Alnwick in Northumberland and founded by corn merchant James Parker Simpson in 1866, moved its headquarters to Berwick in 1960 and has built up its malting capacity to its current level of 140,000 tonnes with several investments, starting in 1993.

The company also has sites in Norfolk and Essex and this expansion will bring the total annual malting capacity to 270,000 tonnes. The current chairman is Simon Simpson, the great grandson of the founder.

Tim McCreath, group managing director, said: "Our unique infrastructure, which includes McCreath Simpson and Prentice, has allowed us to work very hard over the past few years to try and bring both sides of our supply chain closer together; our distilling and brewing customers on one side, and our farmer customers on the other.

"We have managed to secure several longer term deals with distillers and a major brewer which has enabled us to announce this investment in line with our strategic objectives going forward.

"There is no question that the price of malt and therefore malting barley has been undervalued over the last few years.

"This year we have seen a more realistic value returning to the malt market and values have to be passed down to the grower in order to make growing malting barley a competitive and sustainable option.

"We very much hope that our latest investment will be seen as a positive move by our staff, all of our malting barley growers and our customers."

Simpsons Malt supply malted barley to brewing, distilling and food industries worldwide.

While barley is the principal raw ingredient, Simpsons also manufacture malt from other grains such as wheat, rye and oats.

A wide range of speciality malt is manufactured in their own malting plants in Northumberland, Norfolk and Essex, including peated malts for use in the manufacture of malt whiskies. Simpson's customer base includes users of malt from the smallest of micro-brewers who take pre-milled malt in small consignments, to the largest multi-national drinks producers who take malted grain in bulk deliveries.

Simpson's subsidiary company, McCreath, Simpson & Prentice Ltd concentrates on the grain side of the business and has a core base of more than 2000 farms in the North of England and the Scottish Borders.

They provide a large proportion of the malting barley crop from that region to Simpsons Malt. The balance is procured from the prime barley growing areas located in East Anglia, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and the South of England.

JP Simpson & Co.(Export) Ltd is the division within the group responsible for selling Simpson Malt's products overseas.

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