Doing a bit of research into maltsters... Here are the common ones, their outputs, and who owns them
Annual
Name Output Location & Ownership
Pauls Malt 310,000 Nine malting plants in Scotland and England. Owned by Greencore (yes the Irish company) since 2012.
Simpsons 280,000 Tweed Valley and Tivetshall - Simpsons family owned
Bairds 250,000 Scotland: Inverness, Arboath, Pencaitland. England: Grantham, Witham - Owned by Graincorp
Crisp 250,000 England: Great Ryburgh, Ditchingham, Mistley. Scotland: Alloa, Speyside - owned by Ragleth Ltd
Muntons 210,000
Minch Malt 75,000 Athy Co Kildare - owned by Greencore until 2010 when sold to Axereal. Was sold again in 2012.
Minch Malt 40,000 Banagher Co Offaly (closed 2005)
MCI 27,000 Cork City - OWned by Dairygold, Glanbia, IAWS
Warminster 2,000* Warminster, Wiltshire - Westcrop since 1994, owned by Guinness before that
* Warminster don't do any roasting, that's all outsourced.
Footnote:
Irish company Greencore was the largest maltster in Europe until 2010, producing 520,000 tonnes annually. In 2010 they sold all their operations (Ireland, UK and Belgium) to French company Axereal which also trades as Boortmalt after the acquisition of Dutch maltster Boort in 1994.
Greencore itself was formed when the Irish Government privatised the state-owned Irish Sugar Company in 1991.
Are we supposed to buy artisan malt?
And what is actually wrong with those not artisan malts?
I never knew any of the malts were artisan, call me ignorant :o
Is that figure for Warminster correct?
The fella who owns Warm. supplies all the others with their Marris also
Legends
Artisan Malt, Crafty that, we'll be buying our crown caps from the blind blacksmith down the road next!
Perish the thought we end up like this pair:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzjR0yL4f0Y