Ethiopia: Soufflet launches new malting plant in Addis Ababa

Sprawling across 10 ha in one of Addis Ababa’s suburbs, Malteries Soufflet’s newest malting plant took just slightly over two years to construct since the works started in March 2019, La Depeche reported on June 25.

The first trial production of malt started in May this year, the company said. Today the facility is working towards increasing the scale of its output, aiming at producing 60 thousand tonnes of malt this year.

The plant’s capacity is 110,000 tonnes of base malt (Pilsen) destined for the leading local beer makers Heineken, BGI Castel, Diageo, Habesha, and Dashen. Until now, the brewers have had to import most of their malt requirements from abroad.

The company sources its barley from local producers “having accompanied the agricultural, technical, and commercial development of the regions to the south and west of Addis Ababa for four years”, Soufflet said in a press-release. Nowadays, 40,000 farmers grow 80,000 tonnes of malting barley for the company’s Ethiopia malthouse.

The nation’s beer market is growing by 15% every year, Soufflet said, and local malt offer does not meet the demand. And this in spite of Ethiopia being the largest producer of food and feed barley in Africa. In 2018, local beer makers imported EUR50 mln worth of malt, the company said.

Thanks to the new production facility Soufflet plans to considerably reduce the local demand for imported malt, currently estimated at 70% of the industry’s annual malt needs.

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