South America: Malting capacity utilization seen as rather high despite sluggish beer growth

In the context of the world beer production, South America represents 13% of the brewing total, ranked the 4th behind Asia, North America, and Western Europe respectively, RMI Analytics reported earlier this month.

Looking at individual countries, Brazil is the clear leader followed by Colombia, Argentina, Peru, and Chile.

From a forward growth point of view, the South America region is expected to be the leader for the period 2020-2027 which includes the pandemic drop in beer sales.

In terms of the region’s malting capacity, the integrated assets of world’s No. 1 brewer AB InBev dominate the regional picture, with 51% of the total capacity. The other integrated maltster relates to Petropolis’ Malteria Oriental (Uruguay 240 thousand tonnes). The commercial malting capacity landscape covering the other 49% of the region’s capacity consists of Boortmalt (Argentina 440 thousand tonnes), Agraria (Brazil 440 thousand tonnes as the new expansion comes online in late 2023), Soufflet (Brazil 105 thousand tonnes), and Maltexco (Chile 100 thousand tonnes).

Malting capacity utilization in 2023 is rather high at 92.6% despite sluggish beer growth and new capacity coming online (Agraria).

E-malt.com, the global information source for the brewing and malting industry professionals. The bi-weekly E-malt.com Newsletters feature latest industry news, statistics in graphs and tables, world barley and malt prices, and other relevant information. Click here to get full access to E-malt.com. If you are a Castle Malting client, you can get free access to E-malt.com website and publications. Contact us for more information at marketing@castlemalting.com .