Government’s business boss wowed by Britain’s magnificent malt!
By: JimOldfield
June 12th, 2012
A top Government Minister has declared Britain’s malt producers one of the nation’s “best kept success secrets” – after a fact-finding trip to one of the country’s leading maltsters. Norman Lamb, MP and Under-Secretary of State at the department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) visited Crisp Maltings HQ at Great Ryburgh, Norfolk.
And he was clearly impressed with what he saw about the contribution malt is making to the country’s economy, as he enthused: “Malting must be one of Britain’s best kept success secrets”.
Crisp’s managing director, Euan Macpherson – who is also the chairman of the Maltsters Association of Great Britain – showed Mr Lamb the business.
Mr Macpherson told him: “This is an industry that shapes over 350,000 hectares of agricultural landscape; gives nearly £450m worth of business to British farmers; provides malt for over 500m bottles of whisky and 4.5 billion pints of beer a year… and yet surprisingly little is known about it.
“In fact, people are more likely to know that there are hops in beer than to know that malted barley is its main ingredient!”
Mr Lamb also discovered that Crisp Maltings sells more than over £18m worth of top quality natural British malt to brewers and distillers in Africa, Asia, Europe, South America and the US every year.
And Mr Macpherson explained that the entire British malting industry’s exports total more than £90m annually.
The men discussed the further opportunities that could open up if current trade barriers could be broken down.
