Farmer and industry representatives say a new malting barley laboratory in the Canadian Grain Commission building will retain Canada’s position as the world’s top quality supplier.
It will strengthen all links of the malting barley chain, from the farmer to the brewer.
The industry says that for Canada’s phenomenal growth in malting barley sales to continue, quality must continue to rise and promising new varieties brought to market.
“It allows us to compete with and keep ahead of other major international suppliers of malting barley and malt,” said Canadian Wheat Board official Michael Brophy, chair of the new facility’s board of directors, at the opening of the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre.
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Winnipeg Liberal member of Parliament John Harvard said the centre “fills a gap in Canada’s malting barley industry.”
The centre has a pilot malting plant, which includes a traditional three vessel malting system plus a novel three-in-one vessel.
It also houses a brewery.
This will allow crop developers to try out new malting barley varieties, allow existing customers to get a better sense of new varieties being developed, and give prospective customers a chance to try Canadian product.
The Canadian Wheat Board contributed $1 million to set up the centre. The Canadian Grain Commission is providing space, equipment and expertise, which it says will be worth about $850,000 over five years. A number of grain companies, maltsters, seed companies and government agencies will share the centre’s $500,000 per year operating costs.
Alan Slater of Busch Agricultural Resources Canada, a subsidiary of Anheuser Busch, said his company is contributing to the project because it intends to use it.
“It would help us and the Canadian producers try to market (new) varieties, particularly offshore,” said Slater.
Busch does its own testing, but the centre will allow it to compare results.
“We think it could give us some valuable duplicate information,” he said.
Right now most pilot plants are small and do not well represent commercial malting conditions. The centre will offer larger test runs.
Slater said this would help sell Canadian malting barley to foreign customers who lack sophisticated test labs.
“We may be able to use this centre and this equipment to educate them on how to better malt and brew this product and they’ll become a satisfied customer of Canadian barley,” said Slater.
Greg Arason, CWB president, said offering customers more information and more proof of quality will be essential to keeping them.
“We don’t want our competitors to capture the forecast increase (in malting barley demand),” said Arason.”You can be sure they are also investing heavily in research and development to help them secure their share.”
In the past 10 years malting barley exports have increased by 94 percent, to 1.24 million tonnes in 2000-01 from 640,000 tonnes in 1990-91. Prairie malting capacity grew by 80 percent in the same period.
Arason said the board hopes to increase the malting barley pool by one million tonnes per year in the next five to eight years.
“This won’t happen by accident,” said Arason.
“It will be the result of implementing a comprehensive marketing plan based on newer, higher yielding malting varieties, the ability to show new customers how those varieties can satisfy their malting and brewing needs.”
