Boortmalt has released a statement outlining that the company intends to purchase malting barley for “Crop 2019” as per its contracted requirements.

In the statement the company outlined the following: “On Tuesday, July 30, 2019, a building partially collapsed on Boortmalt’s site in Athy. Thanks to the safe systems of work in operation on the site, there were no injuries.

The cause of the collapse is unknown and the company is conducting a comprehensive investigation.

A steep used in the malting process partially collapsed on Tuesday, July 30. The Nordon upper steep was built in the early 1990s. No one was injured in the incident.

The company had recently started to expand its plant in Athy, Co. Kildare, to process 140,000t of malt – up from 100,000t.

Harvest 2019

The statement continued: “Boortmalt intends to purchase malting barley for Crop 2019 as per our contracted requirements [where possible] but always respecting our standard terms and conditions:

  • The proportion of malting barley for brewing and distilling;
  • Our malting barley quality specifications;
  • Our malting barley food safety specifications.”

A representative of Boortmalt stated to AgriLand that the proportion of barley for brewing and distilling is 70% and 30% respectively.

AgriLand will continue to keep reader’s updated on progress over the harvest, as well as the reaction of the farmer organisations to the statement where available.

Getting back to capacity

The statement also added: “Since the incident, the production capacity of the plant has been reduced, and the Boortmalt teams are working hard to restore the impacted production capabilities as quickly as possible.

“In addition, the new malting capacity, which was already under construction, is expected to be operational in January 2020, and this will ramp up quickly to full capacity (equivalent to 40,000t/year of malt production).”