If Ireland malted no barley...

[jcskinner]

Where would that leave the Irish whiskey industry?
Why do I ask? Because it looks like we're very close to the deathknell of the Irish malting barley industry, actually. For those who can bear, read the following discussion from Dail Eireann that took place on Tuesday night:

Malting Barley Industry.

Deputy Seán Fleming: I will share a moment of my time with Deputy John Browne.

I request that Dáil Éireann calls on the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and his Government colleagues to ensure that malt and malting barley production is retained in Ireland as a condition of any proposed sale of Greencore Malt to a foreign food company. We are all concerned at reports in the media in recent weeks of the sale of Greencore Malt. A number of approaches have been received by Greencore plc. I understand a French company, Soufflet, visited Ireland more than a week ago to inspect the various facilities of Greencore Malt as part of this process.

Approximately 1,500 Irish farmers grow 130,000 tonnes of malting barley each year and this has been the case for generations with an excellent tradition in many counties, including Laois, Kildare, Carlow and Wexford. It is a valuable premium crop and I am concerned that if this does not continue those farmers would grow feed barley, leading to an excess of feed barley production in the country, with a knock-on effect on prices. There is a malting plant in Athy and depots in Stradbally and Emo in County Laois and I am concerned at reports that they may close early in the new year. I also understand there are four depots in Wexford.

Greencore Malt was formed at the beginning of 2000 with the integration of three Greencore-owned malting companies, namely, Minch Malt in Ireland, Belgomalt in Belgium, and Pauls Malt in the UK. The company has 500,000 tonnes of malting barley in the three countries and the proposed purchaser, Soufflet, already has 1.5 million tonnes of malting barley. If it succeeds in this takeover it will be the biggest malt processor in Europe and perhaps the world.

I also want to highlight the fact that there is a very strong Guinness link through the Smithwicks brand to this malting barley and Guinness trades on its Irishness. It is essential that Irish malting barley continues to supply Guinness. If this link is broken it could have a knock-on effect for the Guinness operation in Ireland. I sincerely hope this does not happen.

Here we go again with Greencore. It closed the Irish sugar industry and thousands of farmers, employees and excellent plants in Carlow and Mallow were thrown to the wind with no benefit to the Irish consumer. Greencore is nothing but an asset-stripping company. It is like a pack of vultures and it is at it here again. That is why I call on the Minister and his colleagues to refer any proposed purchase of Greencore Malt to the EU competition authorities. The purchase by Soufflet would create a new company that would have too much dominance and may abuse it in due course. It would be the biggest malting processor in Europe if it succeeds.

Will the Minister call in the chief executive of Greencore and demand guarantees on the continued growing of malting barley and the continuation of malting in Ireland if Greencore decides to sell Greencore Malt and it is approved by the EU. I am very concerned about the future of farmers in this regard.

Deputy John Browne: I support my colleague, Deputy Seán Fleming, in calling on Greencore to ensure that malting barley growing and malt production will continue in Ireland should it sell its commercial entity. Wexford, Carlow, Kilkenny and Laois have been to the forefront in growing malting barley through the generations. It is recognised that they produce the best malting barley in Europe and they have consistently done so. I am concerned that Greencore does not have a commitment to ensure that malting barley will continue to be grown here. To lose this valuable product would devastate the farming sector in the south east. There would also be a loss of jobs in the depots in County Wexford, including the Minch depot in Enniscorthy and three others.

We already lost the beet industry, which was a major loss to farmers in the south east and it would devastate them completely if we lost the malting barley industry. Despite the fact that Greencore is a commercially independent company I expect the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department to ensure that in any sale it would protect the livelihoods of our malting barley growers and ensure that malting barley growing and malt production would continue in this country for many years to come.

As Deputy Fleming indicated, Guinness and malting barley production go hand in hand in Ireland. It would be a major blow to the economy if a company from France purchases Greencore Malt and closes down production here. There is a genuine fear among farmers in the south east that this will happen. I ask the Minister of State to ensure that it does not happen and also that the livelihoods of farmers involved in growing malting barley will be protected.

Deputy Trevor Sargent: Gabhaim buíochas don Teachta as an cheist seo a ardú.

The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has a long association with the malting barley industry in Ireland which dates back to the beginning of the 1900s, with the introduction of a Guinness-initiated programme of breeding and trialling to improve the varieties of malting barley available to Irish growers. This association was formalised in 1971 when my Department and Guinness agreed to share the operating costs of the programme. The programme ceased in 2002, due mainly to Guinness withdrawing from it.

A number of other significant developments also took place in the brewing industry in Ireland at that time: first, Guinness was subsumed into a new operating company, Diageo, and decided to cease buying malting barley from growers and instead purchase finished malt from malting companies; and, second, the Greencore Malting Group was formed at the beginning of 2000 following the integration of the three Greencore-owned malting companies, namely, Pauls Malt in the UK, Minch Malt in Ireland and Belgomalt in Belgium.

These changes facilitated the introduction of a new operating relationship and cost structure programme between the Department and the malting industry whereby maltsters identified the varieties for entry into official trials and became involved in replicating the trials; and the Department continued official trialling of the varieties and submitted samples from the trials as well as issuing the appropriate results and reports. The industry paid an annual cost to the Department for this service.

While this arrangement has worked well from an operational point of view, the number of malting barley varieties being trialled has decreased significantly in the past decade. There has been an increased focus and discussion between maltsters - particularly Greencore, which is the main purchaser of malting barley in Ireland - and growers’ representatives with regard to the prices being paid. The issue of prices paid for malting barley in Ireland is a matter for growers and malting companies.

I am aware of recent press coverage suggesting that Greencore may be exiting the malting industry by selling off its operation. While my Department, particularly in light of its involvement in the trialling, will be monitoring developments, the issue of the sale of the company by Greencore is a commercial matter for those involved and I cannot become involved in any formal way in that regard. However, I will discuss the matter with the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Deputy Brendan Smith, in order to discover what action might be taken.

[Luke Gough]

I hate to say it, but, BLOODY TYPICAL!

[DavidH]

Yup, I always worry when I see Greencore described as a "convenience food company". It already bothers me that maize is shipped in from France and peated malt from Scotland. If our geographically-protected designation (ie "Irish Whiskey") is to mean anything there should be sourcing requirements imposed. Perhaps not 100% to allow for bad harvests, but substantial.

There is one other maltings in Ireland, ie Cork Maltings. And it's encouraging that some Scottish distilleries manage to malt their own barley. In the event that Greencore's operation shuts down there are options.

Have we got enough society funds to take over Minch?

[Michael Foggarty]

Even in Scotland they buy barley from England and elsewhere in Europe.

[John]

For a country that sells its reputation on the quality of it's foodstuffs, we do seem to be making less and less of them?! I'm also surprised that the big brewers / distillers haven't backwardly intgrated raw material suppliers into their operations in order to guard against price shocks. After all - the price of agricultural commodities is going to rise steeply over the next 10 - 15 years....
J.

[jcskinner]

On the surface, this seems like good news.
But it still leaves the Irish malting industry in an extremely precarious position:

http://www.agrimoney.com/news/greencore ... -1323.html

[IainB]

Personally, from a whiskey viewpoint, I wouldn't worry too much about where the barley comes from. As Michael said above the import English barley to Scotland, so why should we be any different. There are lots of components to the production and maturation of whiskey, and I'd say the only one we can be sure comes from here is the water. And maybe the yeast. Certainly the barrels of whatever type are all imported. Do we go as far as the stills and insist that they're only made from Irish copper?

Or take the case of beer which is, in modern times, almost always flavoured with hops. We have plenty of Irish made beers but I think we grow very few, if any, hops.

As long as the wkiskey tastes good that's the main thing to me.

Now, that said if the question is from an agricultural industry viewpoint that's a different matter entirely. The are plenty of sustainability and preservation of traditional industry agruments that could be brought up but, to be honest, there are too many complications for me to think about right now.

[DavidH]

why should we be any different?

What's wrong with being different? In fact, if we don't start finding some differentiation between this country and others then we can kiss our asses goodbye. I want the distillers to know which farmer grew their grain. I want them to oversee the malting process. I don't want any additives in the whiskey (I'm looking at you, caramel). I want it to be an unambiguously Irish product that is the best in the world. That's a story I want to tell. Let's aim high.

[John]

I agree with David on this.

I would find it difficult to understand how a distiller who imports the bulk of its raw materials from outside of this country could hope to put 'Product of Ireland' on its labels. Customs have very strict rules governing the assignment of the Country of Origin status and I can't imagine what defence there could be in the case of a company sourcing everything abroad and then hoping to avail of export duty reliefs from marketing an 'Irish' product

J.

[jcskinner]

If British (by which I mean Scottish) distillers choose to use British (by which I mean English) barley, that wouldn't affect their country of origin status. We on the other hand are independent.
I'm with David on this too (though perhaps not quite as hardcore on the caramel issue).
Vertical integration would make perfect sense, but apparently not to Irish distillers. And if we outsource the malt and malting, how long before we're merely bottling Slovakian-distilled Jameson here and calling it Irish, as is the case with Waterford Crystal now?

[PureDrop]

I found it ironic that in a previous company I worled for, the "Made in Ireland" stickers were "Made in Japan".

[IainB]

why should we be any different?

What's wrong with being different? In fact, if we don't start finding some differentiation between this country and others then we can kiss our asses goodbye. I want the distillers to know which farmer grew their grain. I want them to oversee the malting process. I don't want any additives in the whiskey (I'm looking at you, caramel). I want it to be an unambiguously Irish product that is the best in the world. That's a story I want to tell. Let's aim high.

I can understand the sentiment here, and of course it's preferable to use Irish barley if possbile. But to get into such detail as suppliers etc. I think would only really be possible with a very small distillery, say something like the Porterhouse are planning, or Kilbeggan. Midleton on the other hand is very much an industrial operation with probably quite large amounts or malted, and unmalted barley requried and to trace these basck through the suppliers and maltsters to individual producers is probably unrealistic.

Let me be clear, I'm no great fan of unnecessary food imports - it makes no sense to me for example that in July you go into a supermarket and see strawberries from the USA when every free bit of road between dublin and wexford is full of people seliing Irish strawberries.

It's just that I think this is not the biggest issue facing Irish whiskey - the rules on what you can call Irish whiskey are quite clear. To equate importing barley to outsourcing production to another country is stretching a bit far I think! I think to grow the "brand" we'll have to do more than say we don't import the barley.

[DavidH]

I can understand the sentiment here, and of course it's preferable to use Irish barley if possbile. But to get into such detail as suppliers etc. I think would only really be possible with a very small distillery, say something like the Porterhouse are planning, or Kilbeggan.

How about Glenmorangie? I think that would qualify as a large distillery (of single malt) and yet they source all of their barley in Scotland. I recall one of the Scottish distillers (can't recall which) telling us that if they found a problem with a bottle of whisky that they could trace it right back through the warehouse and still to the field the barley was grown in. Traceability is routine these days.

I take your point about Midleton, which is on a scale far larger than Glenmorangie even. The Scotch Whisky Association holds Single Malts to a different standard than blends (I'm thinking of the bottling location requirement) so we could do that here too. There could be an "appellation" that certifies that a particular whiskey uses Irish grain, contains no additives, etc.

Our whiskey legislation has been created at the behest of the distillers. I suspect they like to keep Irish farmers over a barrel with the threat of grain imports.

[jcskinner]

I think we're touching on matters that go beyond the malting industry to the heart of what people expect Irish whiskey to be, so I opened another thread to deal with that discussion, called 'What is Irish Whiskey?'

[JohnM]

why should we be any different?

What's wrong with being different? In fact, if we don't start finding some differentiation between this country and others then we can kiss our asses goodbye. I want the distillers to know which farmer grew their grain. I want them to oversee the malting process. I don't want any additives in the whiskey (I'm looking at you, caramel). I want it to be an unambiguously Irish product that is the best in the world. That's a story I want to tell. Let's aim high.

I can understand the sentiment here, and of course it's preferable to use Irish barley if possbile. But to get into such detail as suppliers etc. I think would only really be possible with a very small distillery, say something like the Porterhouse are planning, or Kilbeggan. Midleton on the other hand is very much an industrial operation with probably quite large amounts or malted, and unmalted barley requried and to trace these basck through the suppliers and maltsters to individual producers is probably unrealistic.

Let me be clear, I'm no great fan of unnecessary food imports - it makes no sense to me for example that in July you go into a supermarket and see strawberries from the USA when every free bit of road between dublin and wexford is full of people seliing Irish strawberries.

It's just that I think this is not the biggest issue facing Irish whiskey - the rules on what you can call Irish whiskey are quite clear. To equate importing barley to outsourcing production to another country is stretching a bit far I think! I think to grow the "brand" we'll have to do more than say we don't import the barley.

Ideally, I'd like the barley to be grown here. Cooley's barley isn't all grown here. I think that barley is barley is barley, pretty much. I could be wrong about this. Not sure it would make much differnece to the quality if all the barley was sourced here, but I'd like it to be.

All the packaged herbs you used to get in Superquinn were from Israel. I'm pretty sure we can grow parsley here. Why fly a plane full of leaves all the way... Anyway, that's beside the point.

[DavidH]

Cooley's barley isn't all grown here.

Their peated malt is not grown in Ireland but they can't get that here. I thought the rest of it was Irish, no? Their maize comes from France.

[JohnM]

[quote="JohnM]Cooley's barley isn't all grown here.[/quote]
Their peated malt is not grown in Ireland but they can't get that here. I thought the rest of it was Irish, no? Their maize comes from France.[/quote]

I think all but the peated stuff is sourced in Ireland.

[IainB]

[quote="JohnM]Cooley's barley isn't all grown here.[/quote]
Their peated malt is not grown in Ireland but they can't get that here. I thought the rest of it was Irish, no? Their maize comes from France.[/quote][/quote]

I'm really impressed that they can grow barley already malted and peated in whatever country it happens to be!

[IainB]

Ideally, I'd like the barley to be grown here. Cooley's barley isn't all grown here. I think that barley is barley is barley, pretty much. I could be wrong about this. Not sure it would make much differnece to the quality if all the barley was sourced here, but I'd like it to be.

All the packaged herbs you used to get in Superquinn were from Israel. I'm pretty sure we can grow parsley here. Why fly a plane full of leaves all the way... Anyway, that's beside the point.

There are many varieties of barley and I don't think they're country specific. I think the main concern for the distillers when they talk about the importance of the barley is the variety as opposed to the particular farmer who grew it.

The other thing is that if we want to be specific about the barley we need to seperate the grower from the maltster. Buying barley from an Irish maltster would not necessarily guarantee that the barley came from Ireland, and vice versa.

Anyway I want to reiterate that I'm very much in favour of the idea of buying locally produced foods, including barley. (I grow a reasonable proportion of my own food!) I would prefer if this included the malted barley for my whiskey. So I'm not disagreeing per se but I'd be far more outraged about, as John M noted, foodstuffs that are readily produced here being shipped in from around the world than us having to buy in malted barley if we couldn't source it here.

And yes JohnM, parsley grows very well here. As do spuds, carrotts, leeks, turnips and all the other imported stuff you regularly see on our shelves.

My wife arrived home recently from Tesco with "Fresh" pre packed fish that had been flown from Sri Lanka. Now that really makes no sense. I refused to eat it on principle, which was really rather foolish of me but that's not for this forum!

[IainB]

[quote="JohnM]Cooley's barley isn't all grown here.[/quote]
Their peated malt is not grown in Ireland but they can't get that here. I thought the rest of it was Irish, no? Their maize comes from France.[/quote]

And we can definitely grow maize here too - you'll see lots of it in fields in Wexford, Waterford and East Cork.

Incidentally, can you grow Barley on Skye or Jura??

Or is it time for me to shut up about barley?

[JohnM]

Ian, put me down for a bag of spuds and a few carrots.

We grow a good bit of maize here, but it's used a lot as animal feed.

did you know that some of the shelled prawns you get are farmed here, flown to Thailand to be shelled and then imported back? If that not a good case for malting our own barley, eh, I don't known what I'm talking about.

[IainB]

John, that makes perfect sense to me.

Did you not mention on another forum at some stage that you were hoarding your own bags of unmalted barley. Is it Irish or imported?

If the water shortages are to continue we may have to import water to make our whiskey. Now that would be daft!

I had this idea once that if I won the Euromillions lottery I'd build a small distillery but instead of maturing in a warehouse I'd also buy some sailing ships and have them travel around the world with the maturing whiskey, maybe stopping off in various ports to sell some barrells. I'm not sure it was the most practical idea I ever had and I was maybe a bit drunk at the time but it seemed to be a romantic idea at the time. I suppose though if it wasn't matured in Ireland it couldn't be called Irish whiskey. Not sure what it would be though.

[jcskinner]

These fellows tried that with cognac. I'm unsure how that panned out for them though:
http://neversealand.downtothesea.org/20 ... ed-cognac/
Edit: Actually, I just looked at their own site for the first time and they have a scotch blend too.
In a recession, you would assume that the government might want to keep certain skilled industries intact. But they showed with SR Technics and Waterford Crystal that isn't the case. So the indigenous malting industry cannot remotely count on the government to resolve this; they've spent all their (our!) money already on zombie banks.
I'd be worried for the malting industry here, and while the whiskey might not suffer if all-foreign barley was used, I think it would still leave a bad taste in my mouth.
As for the water, maturation and other issues, I opened that other thread on what is Irish whiskey in the hope that we could discuss them there and maybe come to a consensus (or not!) on what we expect a product called Irish whiskey to be.

[Luke Gough]

JC, thought this might be of interest:

http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1019026.shtml

[jcskinner]

Yup, it's gone.
Wait for the asset stripping to begin now.
http://www.farmersjournal.ie/2010/0206/ ... king.shtml