EU: Old crop malt not discussed anymore, market sources report great interest in purchases for 2023

In the EU markets, old crop malt is not discussed any more, instead several brewers are now searching malt for the final months of 2022, H. M. Gauger GmbH said in their September report.

There is great interest in volume malt purchases for 2023, for domestic markets and exports overseas, market sources report. The EU malting industry claims to be sold out till the end of 2023. This is not a surprise, tight stocks had been known since a long time.

EU malt exports had grown year after year. In 2021/22 competitors from the USA, Russia, Ukraine, China were uncompetitive or dropped out of the world market. The energy crisis added a very strong finance problem. Failures in Germany upset the German market temporarily, partial shut-downs of Slovak malt factories would have a rather strong impact on the malt market of Central Europe. The conclusion is the EU malt capacity is too small, the analysts said.