As growers welcomed news of malting accreditation for Compass and Spartacus in March, the process for end-user acceptance started more than three years ago.
Glencore Agriculture has been working closely with maltsters in China and Japan to speed up the market acceptance process for new varieties.
Jonathon Evans, Barley Trader with Glencore Agriculture, said samples of Compass had been sent to China three seasons ago to start getting end-users engaged.
“We have an ongoing market development program to create more end-user awareness of new varieties as growers’ uptake of new varieties increases,” Jonathon said. “We started sending samples of Compass to customers three years ago, Spartacus last year and Planet this year.
“We try not to pre-empt Barley Australia’s accreditation because we believe in that process, but if we can help growers by speeding up market acceptance then it’s a good outcome.
“Growers are keen to plant new varieties before they are malting accredited because of the increased financial return they get on their yield per hectare.
“It can take two years for end-users to accept a new variety so if we don’t start early, there’s a big lag time for the grower in getting full premium for their malt.”
Jonathon said the process starts with segregating the variety at receival.
“We ask Viterra to put in a segregation, which they treat as Malt 1 all through the supply chain. “Then we get samples to a customer, sold at the feed equivalent, which starts the engagement and trial process.
“Once we get feedback from the customer on how it performs we can send over commercial quantities, generally consisting of a hatch of about 5-10,000mt.”
End-users
Glencore Agriculture has close relationships with large Chinese maltsters and brewers, and Japanese spirit producer, Sanwa, which makes the trials possible. Geffery Hu, Glencore Agriculture’s representative in China, said samples of the new variety were first sent to maltsters who prepared the malt, then delivered to a brewer for further trials.
“The brewer will do a brewing trial using this new variety of malt to analyse its characteristics and performance during brewing,” Geffery said. “The brewery group will then decide whether this new variety is suitable or not, based on their technical department’s judgment.
“The trial results are sent to us for feedback and commercial quantities are discussed.” Jackie Du, from large Chinese maltster Supertime, said its recent
Compass research included both micro-malting trials and processing on a large scale.
“It is conducive to understanding the new Australian varieties and performance in advance,” Jackie said. “We can accumulate the new varieties’ processing data and malting experience, and promote our malt sales.”
Sanwa had traditionally used Commander barley to make its distilled spirit Shochu but is now moving to Compass following malting accreditation. Kenichi Abe, Sanwa General Manager, visited South Australia earlier this year to meet with growers and explain the unique brewing process required to make Shochu.
“We need barley with specific quality features such as a reasonable hardness, a round ground shape, uniform grain size, high starch content and reasonable protein content,” Kenichi said.
“Commander and Compass have good aptitude for Shochu. “We have been using South Australian barley for over 20 years. It is essential for our Shochu ‘iichiko’ because it extracts a very good flavour and aroma.”
Planet
Planet is the next barley variety undergoing malting accreditation in Australia, as more and more growers take up the variety. “While Planet is accredited in some countries in Europe, it still needs to go through an accreditation process here.
We have different soils and climate so we need to make sure it still makes a reliable malt,” Jonathon said. “Planet is in the second stage of accreditation.
Trials will be undertaken in 2018/19 and we expect an outcome in March 2019.
“In the meantime, we have already sent some samples to customers in China and Japan to speed up market acceptance in the event that Planet passes Stage 2.
Viterra is also segregating Planet at some of its South Australian sites for the first time this year.”