The country SASKATOON — Canada’s barley growers are regaining a lost customer.
Colombia purchased 56,000 tonnes of the crop in 2025.
That was the South American country’s first major purchase of Canadian barley in about a decade.
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Peter Watts, managing director of the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre (CMBTC), said Colombia regularly purchased 50,000 to 100,000 tonnes of Canadian barley between 2000 and 2013.
Canada had a good trading relationship with Bavaria, the largest brewing company in the country. It buys virtually all the malting barley exported into Colombia.
Bavaria was purchased by SABMiller in 2005, which was in turn swallowed up by Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2016.
Watts speculates that the change in ownership resulted in morphing quality specifications. Canadian barley is high in protein and sometimes brewers are looking for something more moderate.
AB InBev also has notoriously strict specifications on tendering, including payment specifications. Some suppliers may not have wanted to meet those specifications.
Price was also likely a factor. Canadian barley was sold at a premium to competitors for many years.
The upshot was that purchases from Canada stopped for about a decade.
Why it Matters: Canada needs new markets for malting barley now that Australia is back in the Chinese market.
But about a year ago, Canadian barley prices started to fall as China resumed purchases from Australia after a lengthy trade spat. That pushed a lot of Canadian barley out of the Chinese market.
And then Canada harvested a bumper crop of barley in 2025. Farmers produced 9.73 million tonnes, a 19 per cent improvement over the previous year, putting even more downward pressure on prices.
“Prices have been a lot more competitive in the global market,” said Watts.
At the same time, French malting barley prices climbed higher due to a short crop in that key exporting nation.
Those events, combined with years of continued market development work, encouraged Colombia to reconsider Canadian supplies, and they were happy with that decision.
Watts and other members of Canada’s barley sector spent a week in Colombia in March meeting with Bavaria officials.
“We had a good visit with them,” he said.
“We expect that there will be continued interest from Colombia in buying Canadian malting barley going forward. They indicated they’d like that.”
Bavaria also operates breweries in Chile and Peru, and its sister company, Cerveceria Nacional, does business in Ecuador. Bavaria officials indicated there may be opportunities to use Canadian malting barley in those countries as well.
However, Watts pointed out that those countries are located on the west side of South America and are more likely to import product from Australia and Argentina.
Watts said Latin American markets, including Mexico, probably account for about one million tonnes of annual malting barley demand.
If Canada can capture one-quarter of that demand, it would be substantial.
The good news is that Latin America’s beer market remains relatively strong compared to other regions of the world where it is sagging.
Bavaria just built a brand-new brewery in Colombia that added 10 per cent to the company’s annual production there.
Watts said the two malting plants he visited while in Colombia were “world class” facilities that were clean and extraordinarily efficient.
CMBTC will continue working with Bavaria’s technical team to evaluate newer Canadian malting barley varieties.
AAC Connect and CDC Fraser have been pilot tested and have commercial trials pending.
Evaluation of CDC Churchill will soon be underway. Watts believes it will be a good fit because Bavaria likes CDC Copeland, which is a lower enzyme variety like Churchill.
Watts said CMBTC will continue providing Bavaria with quality and performance data on new varieties as well as annual crop quality and production data.
And Bavaria officials will continue attending CMBTC’s training courses at its facility in Winnipeg.
