By Nqobile Dludla
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -Soufflet Malt and Heineken have entered into a commercial partnership in which the French grain group will invest 100 million euros ($108.51 million) to build a new malting factory in South Africa to supply malt to the Dutch brewer.
The malt factory, which is Soufflet’s second in Africa, will be located next to Heineken’s Sedibeng Brewery near Johannesburg, and is set to be operational by mid-2027.
The partnership “means replacing 4,500 containers of barley coming from abroad for local barley from local shops, making sure that we got a shorter supply chain,” Heineken Managing Director Jordi Borrut said at the signing event.
Right now, Heineken imports all of its barley for its South African operations.
Soufflet Malt is one of the world’s largest malt makers, part of French cooperative group InVivo.
It will source 100% of the barley locally from South African commercial and small-scale farmers and will supply malt to Heineken’s operations in the country, Jeremy Antier the managing director of Soufflet South Africa said at the same event.
With a production capacity of nearly 100,000 tons, the facility will create 55 full-time jobs and support over 200 local South African barley growers, Jeremy said.
Jordi said the partnership also forms part of its merger commitments with wine and cider maker Distell to procure key inputs from local suppliers, producers and farmers.
Soufflet Malt is working on similar projects with Heineken in Brazil and India, InVivo Chief Executive Thierry Blandinières told Reuters.
“We are the world’s biggest maltster today and we want to continue to move forward in emerging countries and continue to gain market share,” Blandinières said.
($1 = 0.9216 euros)
(Reporting by Nqobile Dludla in Johannesburg, Sybille de La Hamaide and Gus Trompiz in ParisEditing by Tomasz Janowski, Kirsten Donovan)
