The annual survey of rejections of barley from UK malting sites

Maltsters feel it most important that there is good feedback to their suppliers, so that the supplier can evaluate their performance.

In an attempt to show how closely to specification suppliers have delivered the barley they have sold to malsters it may be useful to record each year the tonnage of barley rejected from maltings sites as non-compliant in terms of sales specification, which includes food safety issues.

MAGB members have agreed to supply this information to its secretarait each year, with the objective of building up a history of malting barley delivery performance.

We shall run this survey in the autumn each year, once all deliveries from the previous years malting barley crop have been made to maltsters. There is no obligation on maltsters to take part in this data collation, but most have showed strong support for the idea, and are able to provide the information.

We already had the data from the 2002 crop, which was as follows:

Reason for rejection
Rejections as a % of the total

tonnage presented
Nitrogen
1.67%
Moisture
0.05%
Small grains/screenings
0.34%
Admixture/varietal purity
0.24%
Germination
0.74%
Infestation
0.26%
Other (including sensory, food safety, ergot etc)
0.83%

For the 2003 crop we increased the range of refusal reasons, to explore the 'other reasons' list. The results were as follows:

Reason for rejection
Rejections as a % of the total

tonnage presented
Nitrogen
1.2%
Moisture
0.2%
Small grains
0.1%
Admixture
0.1%
Varietal purity
0.1%
Specific weight
0%
Nose or mould
0%
Food safety
0.2%
Infestation
0.4%
Germination
0.3%
Other reasons
0.3%

22 sites took part in the 2003 crop rejection survey, and the total grain rejected was 53,765 tonnes, or 2.87% of the total barley delivered to those 22 sites.

For the 2004 crop an average of 5.96% of the total tonnage presented to the maltings was rejected. The results were as follows:

Reason for rejection
Rejections as a % of the total

tonnage presented
Nitrogen
2.1%
Moisture
0.1%
Small grains
0.2%
Admixture
0.1%
Varietal purity
0.5%
Specific weight
0%
Nose or mould
0.3%
Food safety
0.1%
Infestation
0.4%
Germination
1.3%
Other reasons
0.9%

7 of the largest member companies took part in the surevy, accounting for 22 sites, and 86,441 tonnes of grain was rejected from those sites for the above reasons.


The Maltsters Association of Great Britain
31B Castlegate, Newark, Notts, NG241AZ.
Phone 01636 700781, Fax 01636 701836