EU: Maltsters must operate in a more responsible manner than in the past few years

The feeling in the market is that Weissheimer will come out of their crisis. Even so, the effect of their threatening breakdown will remain, market analysts have recently commented.

The advise of experts is that maltsters must operate in a more responsible manner than in the past few years. They will need profits to satisfy their shareholders and bankers, and they are confronted by an ever rising cost of energy. They also run the risk of higher barley markets, due to dissatisfaction of barley farmers and the market's appetite for oilseeds and bio-ethanol commodities, maize, wheat and sugar.

At present malt contracts in domestic markets for 2007 are done at levels between � 270,-/280,-, delivered breweries.