Offering exceptional malts of consistent quality
Operational excellence, the key to consistent, exceptional malts
Our ability to produce an exceptional malt of consistent quality is the result of 70 years of know-how passed on to our employees, but also the regular introduction of new technologies. This expertise of our R&D and production teams is essential to ensuring superior quality malt in large volumes.
Tests and adjustments made throughout the process
Guaranteeing the production of an exceptional malt of consistent quality, whatever the volume, requires special attention right from the selection of the raw material. In fact, we guarantee the high quality of our supply of malting barley from our farmers. Indeed, they must follow strict specifications and meet certain parameters, particularly in terms of protein content, size and germination capacity. To achieve this level of requirement, our partner Soufflet Agriculture supports and advises our farmers on a daily basis with the aim of collecting consistent barley batches of the required quality. Nevertheless, agronomy remains a science of living things. The quality and characteristics of barley vary according to the regions and climatic conditions.
Our strength is adapting to this particular quality to meet our customers’ most demanding specifications. Numerous analyses and measurements are carried out before, during and after the malting process to ensure the quality of the malt we deliver. For example, our technicians analyse the specific characteristics of the newly harvested barley that will supply our malting plants. We then test their malting performance, which differs from variety to variety and region to region. The R&D work continues with testing of malting recipes in our micro-malting plants. This stage allows us to make malting recipe recommendations to our production sites. Our R&D teams also diagnose any potential health risks. Lastly, if necessary during the year, they recommend solutions for the correction of malting recipes to be implemented in our sites.
Human expertise and new technologies: an ingenious combination
The excellence and consistency of the malts are also guaranteed by the expertise of the production teams in our malting plants, combined with that of the R&D teams and the Soufflet Research and Innovation Centre. Experienced and enriched with the transmission of 70 years of know-how, they have detailed and advanced knowledge of their production tool which enables them to use the recommendations made by the R&D department in malting recipes and adapt them to the industrial specificities of their production site.
One of the keys to our operational excellence is therefore linked to the vast expertise of our employees who are able to monitor the execution of malt production, detect potential anomalies and bring corrective solutions to the sight, texture and flavour of the malt. Thus, the expertise of our production managers ensures the quality of our malts.
In addition, we rely on the numerous measurements and analyses carried out throughout the production process and before dispatch to ensure that each stage of the malting process runs smoothly, that the malt is consistent and of high quality, and that the specifications required by our customers are met.
In our ongoing quest to optimise the quality and consistency of our malts, we also capitalise on new technologies. We are equipped with technological tools such as an imaging bench, which is not widely used in the malting sector, to evaluate the effectiveness of the steeping stage on barley grain and to monitor its change during malting. This tool optimises the malting process, ensuring the quality of the finished product.
