Our history
Origins and birth
In 1960, the cooperative La Providence Agricole, the historical entity of Champagne Céréales, decided to invest in downstream uses of barley in order to take on the task of adding value to the harvests of its members in their dealings with maltsters. A malting plant was built in Port Colbert in Reims and inaugurated in 1961.
Many cooperatives in northeastern France joined the malt section of La Providence Agricole, and the malting plant was gradually enlarged. In 1975, a second plant was built in Pringy, near Vitry-le-François, bringing the total annual production capacity to 93,000 tons.
In 1977, Union Providence Malt was created, uniting some fifteen cooperatives. In the early 1980s, the cooperative groups carried out operations involving acquisition of private malting plants: S.A. Moselle in Metz and S.A. Vandecastelle in Aire sur la Lys. After the founding of Malteurop in 1982, the two regional federations, Union Providence Malt and Union Champagne Malt, merged in 1984, giving birth to the Malteurop Group.
Growth and internationalization
1991 marked an important stage in the development of Malteurop with the first investment outside France – the acquisition of shares of Intermalta in San Adrian in Spain.
The phenomenon gathered speed over the course of the decade with the building of two malting plants in Germany – in Rostock and Langerringen – in 1993, then with the temporary leasing of a malting plant in Argentina in 1995 and the establishment of a permanent presence in China in 1996.
Early in 2000, external growth continued in Spain with Intermalta’s acquisition of the plant in Albacete and the creation of the plants in Chernigov and Kharkov in Ukraine.
At the same time, Malteurop continued consolidating its manufacturing facilities with the extension of the San Adrian plant in Spain and Vitry-le-François in France, whose annual production capacity was increased to 225,000 tons.
In late 2006 Malteurop took over two plants from the German group Weissheimer, one in Gdansk in Poland and the other in Heidenau in Germany.
In 2008, with its acquisition of ADM Malting – the leader of the malt industry in North America (742,000 tons), with industrial presence in four countries (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) –, Malteurop became the world’s leading malt producer.
The Group’s growth is continuing with the construction of a new facility in Seville, Spain in 2008.
Malteurop, world leader of the malt industry and the leading supplier to the brewing industry, is now present in 12 countries, with 23 plants and a production capacity of 2,200,000 tons.
