Sustainable production of high quality Malt in the Baltic Sea region

Organisation: Viking Malt Oy

Time: 10/12/2018 – 10/12/2021

Description:

Viking Malt is a worldwide acknowledged malting company that provides value adding malted products to its customers for their success. We have our malting plants in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania and Poland, and we are the largest malting company in the Baltic Sea area.
Viking Malt encourages local cultivation of malting barley. The total cultivation area of our barley adds up to about 2600 km2, which corresponds to the area of Luxembourg. There are plenty of farmers specialized in growing malting barley and they are committed to making further efforts in increasing the quality and productivity of locally grown malting barley.
Barley cultivation forms a significant part of the environmental impact of the barley-to-beer chain, especially through its effect of water eutrophication. Therefore, Viking Malt has made a commitment to act for reducing the nutrient leakages to the Baltic Sea from barley cultivation. Our commitment consists of the following activities:
1.Viking Malt has introduced a supplier audit system in Finland, to encourage and help farmers and suppliers to further improve their cultivation methods from environmental point of view. The audit focused on crop rotation and on improving the nutrient balance and soil quality. Now we commit to introducing the developed audit system to Lithuania and Poland, where we have strong contract farming positions. In Sweden and Denmark, we will investigate the possibilities together with our sourcing partners.
2.Viking Malt has participated in a project that identified opportunities for saving energy by using varieties with low moisture requirements. Next, we will develop new, more eco-efficient malting barley varieties together with breeders and brewers. The main target in new varieties is to achieve better efficiency and energy use in the whole barley-to-beer chain.
3.Viking Malt will support the cultivation of Winter Malting Barley in Northern climate conditions, with focus on Poland and Lithuania. Winter varieties enable vegetation in the fields also during winter, thus reducing the leaching of nitrogen and phosphorus.
4.Viking Malt is participating in the Carbon action -project to understand the ability of the soil to store carbon.
The Commitment is expected to last three years with an option to continue thereafter.