Netherlands: Dutch Prime Minister opens Holland Malt’s new maltings in Eemshaven

Yesterday, June 27, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende officially opened Holland Malt’s new maltings in Eemshaven, Groningen, the Netherlands.

Holland Malt, a joint venture involving beer brewer Bavaria and Agrifirm, an agricultural cooperative with more than 600 grain farmers, produces malt from high-quality malting barley, the most important raw material in beer. With its new complex in Eemshaven, Holland Malt now has the most modern malting plant in the world and one that uses the most innovative technology. The malt house also has its own grain silo complex to store its malting barley.

The cooperation within this joint venture ensures integration throughout the entire chain from farmer to the finished product: beer. This is a matter of concern because the increasing demand for food safety is making the quality aspect of malt increasingly important. At this plant, a cutting-edge tracking & tracing system provides a maximum guarantee of quality, completely in line with trends in the European foods industry. Technology is thus contributing to the production of safe, healthy products.

The malting plant in Eemshaven is of great economic importance for both the region and the Dutch export market as a whole. For grain growers in the northern provinces, the maltings provides a market for their harvest. The plant also provides jobs for its own employees but even more jobs for others. Most of its production is exported. Because the plant is located right on the deep-sea Port of Eemshaven, it can serve customers throughout the world. The malt house will process 165,000 tons of malting barley into 130,000 tons of malt every year. This is enough to brew more than a billion litres of beer. Together with Holland Malt’s malting plant in the Dutch town of Lieshout, the company’s annual production is around 230,000 tons. This makes Holland Malt one of the top twenty malt producers in the world.

The prime minister addressed the guests before the official opening, accomplished by the loading of a malt container.

Members of the boards for the partners in the chain spoke as well. “Considering the developments in agriculture,” said A. Loman, chief executive of Agrifirm, “it is of great importance for us to concentrate on high-quality crops such as malting barley because they guarantee us better returns. This malting plant offers us an opportunity to structure our grain storage even more efficiently, right in the middle of our production area. Our grain producers realised the great advantages associated with our undertaking. More than 600 of them participated financially.”

Mr M. Lettinga, the chairman of the grain producers’ pool, added: “For us, it is a question of doing an honest business together, and not just for the short term. I am proud that more than 600 members of the grain pool decided not to install a new kitchen or buy a new tractor but to invest in Holland Malt – an investment in the future.”

P.J.J.M. Swinkels, chairman of the board for Bavaria, spoke at the opening as well. “For Bavaria, investing in the company’s own malt production was a strategic decision. This gives us complete control over the chain from barley to beer. After all, beer is a natural product. And a healthy one too, for body and mind as well as for the economy. Beer and malt are important agricultural export products for our country. Europe, the world’s largest exporter of malt, provides 55% of the world’s demand for malt. More than half of the beer brewed in the Netherlands crosses our country’s borders – and this is without any subsidies on the beer or on the export of malt. Now that’s what I call healthy!”

Holland Malt is a joint venture involving beer brewer Bavaria NV in Lieshout (57%) and the agricultural cooperative Agrifirm BV in Meppel (43%). More than 600 grain farmers, most of them from the northern provinces of the Netherlands, participate in Agrifirm by means of bonds.

Holland Malt has locations in Lieshout and Eemshaven and employs around 50 people. The plant in Eemshaven processes 165,000 tons of malting barley a year. This is the yield from 25,000 ha. of agricultural land (for the sake of comparison, the entire Dutch production of malting barley is grown on 45,000 ha.). The production capacity for the plant in Eemshaven is expected to be 130,000 tons of malt for 2006 or enough malt to produce a billion litres of beer. Expected turnover for 2006 is € 70 million.

The construction involved an investment of € 65 million and took two years. A total of 20,000 m3 of concrete, 75,000 tons of steel, and 40,000 m3 of sand were used in the construction.

Included at the site of the malting plant is a low-rise silo with a storage capacity of 60,000 tons of malting barley. During the harvest period, 250 lorries a day can be unloaded. The two malting towers offer a capacity of 440 tons a day. Fifteen thousand tons of malt can be stored at the plant.

The malting plant in Eemshaven is the most modern of its kind in the world and is highly automated. Weighing, sampling and unloading are all done completely automatically. The maltings is a supreme example of the use of cutting-edge technology. No fewer than three patented innovations were developed and applied during its construction. Major improvements in the areas of beerflavour in combination with the storage life of beer were achieved. The malting plant was also designed to be environmentally responsible. Using the ECO-Steep process, for example, has resulted in a possible reduction of the water consumption by at least 35%.

The malt produced in Eemshaven is intended mainly for export. Holland Malt has customers in six continents. Significant growth markets are Asia, Africa and South America.

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