Greece: Athenian Brewery starts to export malt to Austria and Israel

Greece’s leading beer producer, Athenian Brewery, started to export malt to Austria and Israel this year, implementing part of a plan that has been in place for a number of years in the context of a contract-farming program over the last decade, Ekathimerini.com reported on November 8.

The exports to Austria and Israel were, according to sources, made to third parties and not any of the subsidiaries of the Heineken group to which Athenian belongs.

The Greek company procures the barley from Greek producers and turns it into malt at its own facilities in Thessaloniki in the north and Patra in the west, covering 100 percent of its production needs in Greece. This year Athenian acquired and malted a total of 63,000 tons of Greek barley. After covering its own needs, it went on to export, sending 7,000 tons to Austria and 4,000 tons to Israel.

The beer company is also expanding its cooperation agreements in Greece. It recently started procuring Greek malt for Rhodes-based brewery VAP P. Kouyios, which produces the Zythos VAP beer.

Over 2,500 barley producers around Greece are taking part in the decade-old contract-farming program of Athenian Brewery, which has procured more than 390,000 tons of high-quality Greek barley for malting.

The firm is also preparing to launch the production of apple cider at its Patra facility in early 2019.

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