A leading buyer of malting barley has been appointed to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board’s (AHDB) cereals and oilseeds board.
Bairds Malt’s raw materials manager, Iain Davies, will represent the interests of the malting sector on the levy body’s board.
Mr Davies is responsible for buying approximately 300,000 tonnes of malting barley each year for Bairds Malt’s five malting plants located across the UK.
These are located in Inverness, Arbroath, Pencaitland in East Lothian, Grantham in Lincolnshire and Witham in Essex.
“The biggest driver for brewers and distillers is the environment and being carbon neutral,” said Mr Davies.
“Our customers need to continue buying UK malt and so we have to make it as marketable a product as possible.
“My role on the AHDB board is to offer insight into the markets we operate in – to remember the end product and the end users.”
Mr Davies said he was particularly interested in AHDB’s integrated pest management (IPM) programme and its Envirobench work, which aims to help farmers become carbon neutral by 2040.
He added: “In my opinion, 2040 is probably not soon enough, but we have to be realistic in our industry.
“A lot of malting and milling facilities are fairly aged, so there needs to be enough time for plants to be modernised and new plants to be built.”
