“Maintaining hygiene has always been a top priority for [food and beverage] manufacturers, given the potential risks of cross-contamination between product batches if not rigorously addressed,” said Colin Morgan, business unit manager for food heat transfer at Alfa Laval.

“However, this imperative must now be harmonised with the need for increased productivity, as rising energy costs are eroding margins for many manufacturers.

“Our innovative hygienic line directly addresses both of these challenges by extending equipment operating times without compromising hygiene standards.”

SmoothPort, an exclusive innovation crafted for the Alfa Laval Hygienic Line, is designed to enhance cleanliness and drainage efficiency, effectively combating residue build-up.

This innovation repositions the gasket’s edge against the plate, minimising the risk of particle entrapment and maximising the unit’s drainage capabilities.

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The Freight Recycling Programme follows a successful one-month trial with nine brewing and distilling customers who purchase large quantities of malt sacks.

Crisp Malt recently partnered with innovative recycling company TerraCycle to meet strong customer demand for more sustainable packaging disposal solutions in the sector.

The Freight Recycling Programme allows customers to pack empty plastic malt sacks of any size onto pallets, with no restriction on weight, offering cost-effective bulk collections and recycling for brewers and distillers.

Empty malt sacks from all suppliers can be recycled via this programme, as long as the packaging composition is polypropylene or polyethylene.

The sum of the three associated costs of the programme are comparable to other waste disposal routes, composed of the recycling, the pallet handling ,and the shipment fees.

The recycling fee is based on weight at £2.47 per kg, while the pallet handling fee is a standard £25 per pallet. The shipment fee will be variable depending on the customer’s distance from TerraCycle’s Material Recovery Facility. Shipment can either be arranged by the customer or TerraCycle.

“The recycling of plastic malt sacks has been an industry-wide challenge for many years, mainly due to the difficulties around the local recycling of polypropylene,” said Crisp Malt sustainability co-orinator, Ellie Wood.

“We have been working hard to resolve this and are proud to offer an industry-first solution to recycling waste malt sacks in bulk after a successful trial with our customers, who found the system to be very user friendly.

“During the one-month trial, we recycled 820 kg of waste malt sacks at an average cost of £2.82 per kg (excluding shipment fees). We are excited to be onboarding many new customers onto the programme, supporting them with their sustainability goals.”

Julien Tremblin, general manager at TerraCycle Europe, said: “Disposing of plastic malt sacks in a more environmentally responsible way is a challenge faced by commercial malt-users of all sizes and capacities, so it is great to see Crisp Malt bringing a flexible, cost-effective recycling solution that caters for the varied operational scope of its client base.

“After a successful pilot with selected customers, we hope and expect to see widespread engagement across the malt-using industry as we roll out the solution across the UK.”

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The hop merchant has, this year, taken its famous hop walk on tour. It’s a completely reimagined, new format that replaces the original flagship event of two days packed with seminars, trade stands, crop inspections, and global crop reports.

The new format promised to be, and delivered, a more intimate experience for those taking part. Brewers and distributors joined in from the UK and internationally in an increased number of smaller focused groups across two weeks of hop harvesting, fostering a stronger connection between brewers and the sources of their ingredients.

Each day began with a site tour of Charles Faram facilities, taking in information about improvements and processes. Visitors then boarded a coach that whisked them away on a road trip from Faram’s to two Charles Faram member farms.

The new concept of smaller groups allowed for meaningful interactions and in-depth innovation discoveries at Hawkins Farming and Pridewood Hops. Brewing industry experts were introduced to cutting-edge technology and sustainable practices on the farms, and with the Charles Faram Hop Development Programme.

At Hawkins Farming, attendees marveled at the 12-month-old, state-of-the-art picking machine that has literally flipped the process of hop picking on its side. They learned about the Charles Faram hop varieties being grown, such as Harlequin, Olicana, and a British favourite, Progress.

At Pridewood Hops, guests were treated to a visit to the very latest in new varieties growing in a secret plot and enjoyed more engineering marvels in the modern kiln.

The HopWalk on Tour not only highlighted the importance of supporting British farmers, but also provided brewers with an appreciation for the hops that contribute to their craft.

As the sun set on the busy days, Charles Faram brought the eager travellers back to the Faram HQ, where a barbecue and pub snacks awaited them at their pop-up pub, The Faram Arms. Here, guests had the opportunity to sample a showcase of beers demonstrating how the flavour profiles of the newer varieties from the Hop Development Programme can be optimised.

Beers included Wondrous Isles, from Utopian Brewing, Pure Pilsner, from Purity, Dune, from Driftwood Spars, Suvi, from Thornbridge Brewery, and Hopical Storm, from Timothy Taylor’s.

“It was wonderful to see everything you’re doing and the improvements you are making,” said one visitor. “It was an incredible opportunity to explore the rich diversity of hops and gain first-hand insights into the latest breeding programmes…

“The expert guidance and passion of the Charles Faram team make the HopWalk on Tour a must-attend for anyone serious about brewing innovative, hop-forward beers. We’ve come away with not only a deeper appreciation for the craft, but also fresh ideas that directly influence our future brews.”

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A TerraCycle Zero Waste Box and some of the Crisp Malt sacks

TerraCycle is an innovative waste management company that has become a global leader in collecting and recycling hard-to-recycle waste. The new partnership makes Crisp Malt the first major maltster to enable the collection, recycling, and repurposing of its used malt sacks in the UK.

Now, Crisp Malt customers can purchase TerraCycle Zero Waste Boxes directly through the Crisp Malt sales or customer service teams.

To celebrate the launch, the first 100 boxes will be offered at half-price. The Zero Waste Box is TerraCycle’s solution for storing, shipping, and recycling various types of hard-to-recycle waste that are typically not recycled through local councils or traditional recycling facilities.

Boxes purchased by Crisp Malt customers through the programme can be used to collect empty plastic malt sacks for recycling. A large Zero Waste Box can hold approximately 80 to 100 empty 25kg malt sacks, and its all-inclusive cost of around £131 per box (excluding VAT) covers recycling, shipping, and handling fees.

Additionally, Crisp Malt and TerraCycle are collaborating on an alternative option, which will offer bulk collections and recycling services with costs comparable to current disposal routes.

“Many of our customers are moving towards more sustainable practices across all areas of their business,” said Ellie Wood, sustainability co-ordinator at Crisp Malt.

“Our partnership with TerraCycle addresses the industry-wide challenge of used malt sack disposal. This initiative provides our customers with a simple solution to recycle their waste malt sacks, helping them meet their own ‘zero waste’ goals as well as helping us work towards our own ‘zero waste’ sustainability targets.

“If all our customers adopted this scheme, over 70 tonnes of plastic waste from sacks could be kept out of landfills and incinerators each year. Our partnership with TerraCycle provides our customers with a fully transparent and traceable sustainable waste management process.

“The Zero Waste Box programme is just the start. We are developing another option for our larger customers to offer bulk collections and recycling.”

Julien Tremblin, general manager of TerraCycle Europe, said: “TerraCycle is delighted to be partnering with Crisp Malt to bring a recycling solution for plastic malt sacks to its UK brewery, distillery, and other malt-using industry customers.

“Malt sacks represent one of the most significant waste management challenges these sectors face, so it is great to see a market leader like Crisp Malt taking proactive action to offer its customers the opportunity to address this issue in a collaborative way.

“We would encourage any maltster to follow Crisp Malt’s forward thinking example to help grow a widespread transition to more circular waste management practices across the malting industry.”

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Already rolled out by Greene King Pub Partners, the leased, tenanted and franchise business unit of Greene King, to help its pub operators become more sustainable, the new tool will help large operators with multiple sites to understand and calculate their carbon footprint.

An evolution of the forum’s original carbon calculator, it will identify key actions and practical ways to reduce emissions, while improving profitability and business resilience. 

The new version has been developed using the forum’s current model, launched in 2022 in collaboration with the British Beer and Pub Association, the British Institute of Innkeeping, UKHospitality, and Sky.

Developed from Zero Carbon Forum’s net zero roadmap findings, learnings from all forum members and insight from carbon experts, the original carbon calculator has been implemented by more than 500 independent pubs, hotels, and restaurants, completing carbon footprints for 5,976 sites, and totalling 1.7m tonnes of measured CO2. 

The new version provides three additional features, designed specifically for larger operators to have clear visibility of their supply chain carbon data in Scope 2 for franchisees and Scope 3 for tenants and lessees. Scope 3, which involves reducing emissions within the food and drink supply chain, contains the largest proportion of CO2 emissions, posing the biggest challenge for the industry. 

Using the calculator, operators can now review and measure the carbon data of their supply chain, both site by site and as an aggregate. Operators can instantly see which sites are actively using the calculator across their estate, identify any areas that still need to implement the tool, and highlight carbon reduction milestones for operators.

Users on site will receive a personalised toolkit with targeted actions to reduce emissions that align with the corporate sustainability plans of their business.  

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The last 12 months certainly wasn’t plain sailing, and for many the tightening of purse strings and eroding of bottom lines continued at pace.

However, as is often the case, the hospitality industry exhibited a resilience and adaptability that meant many were able to weather the storm and come out the other side with a small, but optimistic, spring in their step.

But despite a marginally improving operator landscape, for consumers, cost-of-living pressures still loomed large, with more than 90% reporting being affected in some capacity by the crisis throughout 2023.

Premiumisation

One trend that showed no signs of abating was a movement up the price ladder towards more premium categories. In 2023, world lager and stout continued to take full advantage of consumers’ willingness to spend more on better quality drinks, whereas craft beer was unable to reap the same rewards.

In fact, the craft beer category, worth just shy of £1.2 billion, shrunk marginally (-1.3%) in the last year, and in doing so saw its share of total beer fall by 0.4 percentage points to just under 9%.

Within the category, the performance of craft cask ale and lager drove overall declines and offset growth, and positive movement within craft keg ale. The growth of craft keg ale, like the growth of world lager, showcases premiumisation at play within its respective ale and lager categories.

However, the variety of new product development within world lager, and the ever-growing distribution footprint this has led to, poses a threat to many categories’ share of taps on the bar, especially those that command lower prices and achieve lower rates of sale.

Promisingly for craft, though, its drinkers are more likely than lager, ale, or stout consumers to pay extra for a better-quality drink, and so the opportunity to leverage the premiumising demands of the market is there for craft brewers whose brands are able to tick the relevant boxes around quality.

Changing occasions

Similarly, another trend that spilled over from 2022 and continued throughout last year was consumers’ changing occasion behaviour. We continued to see a reduction in visit frequency as budgets were squeezed, with everyday occasions like casual and after-work drinks bearing the brunt of this scaled back visitation.

The silver lining of this is that consumers increasingly looked to treat themselves when they did go out, which helped to further stoke the fire of the premiumisation train.

Tightened budgets also resulted in consumers looking to heighten the experience of every visit, maximising the ‘treat feel’ and extracting as much value as possible from their spend. This was good news for experience-led occasions, with more consumers visiting the on-trade for themed and ticketed events, live music, and boozy brunches, to name a few.

We see another great opportunity for craft brands to capitalise on the growing popularity of such occasions, as craft drinkers engage with them more frequently than consumers of other beer categories. Brewers can look to work with the operators who are organising events like these with a view to having their brands front and centre on menus, special offers, and the like.

It’s not just changing visit occasions that present an opportunity for craft beer in the pursuit of satisfying consumers’ growing demands for heightened experiences, however. We’re also seeing a slight shift in the type of outlet that consumers are visiting. Namely, we’ve seen an uptick in the popularity of brewery taprooms, and wine and cocktail bars, as consumers seek the added experience and quality of engaging with their favourite categories in specialist settings.

Sporting prowess

Elsewhere, we’re seeing the growing importance of sport for the on-trade, and by extension the opportunity for craft within that. Though traditionally the playground of mainstream lager, with major sporting events consistently accounting for double-digit uplifts in the on-trade for beer, suppliers are increasingly looking to enter the arena with other categories.

With almost a third of craft beer drinkers visiting pubs to watch live sport, second only to stout and more than ale or lager, there’s a big opportunity for craft suppliers to leverage this engagement.

No and low grow

Something that also can’t be ignored is the growth of non-alcoholic and low-alcohol beers. Their circa 40% value growth in 2023 made it the best-performing beer category in percentage terms.

The emergence of more and more alcohol-free variants, as well as standalone brands, has enabled consumers to broaden their engagement with, and enjoyment of, the category, and we expect to see this upward trajectory continue.

The future

Looking ahead, to a degree we expect it to be business as usual, from a trend perspective. Even with falling inflation, it’ll be some time yet before consumers truly feel that the cost-of- living crisis is behind them. So, many of the behavioural changes and market dynamic shifts that we’ve seen over the last year or two will likely continue.

The key thing for craft brewers will be achieving effective messaging around quality, provenance and craftsmanship, variety, and style differentiation, to ensure that brands can simultaneously hold their own alongside the winning names from other categories and stand out as accessible and desirable options that command their place on the bar.

• This article was originally published in SIBA’s Independent Beer Report, 2024 — The UK’s craft brewing sector in focus. 

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At the recent Restaurant Show in Birmingham, CGA client director Dani Rowlands gave an expert overview of the big pub trends for suppliers and operators to know. Here are five of her top takeaways. 

Market-beating sales growth

Pubs’ sales have built back steadily to pre-Covid levels over the last two years, and the CGA RSM Hospitality Business Tracker has shown that they achieved better year-on-year growth than other channels through most of 2023. However, growth has generally been below the rate of inflation.

Easing of inflationary pressures

Pubs and consumers alike have faced enormous cost pressures in recent years, but there are signs that some may be easing. The Foodservice Price Index, from CGA and Prestige Purchasing, shows inflation fell below 10% for the first time in two years in March. And CGA’s latest Cost of Living Pulse indicates that the pressure on consumers is lessening and they are steadily increasing the frequency of their eating and drinking out. 

Fragile business confidence

While some trends are positive, pub leaders remain cautious about the future. CGA’s latest Business Confidence Survey shows only 41% of all hospitality leaders are optimistic about prospects for the general market in the next 12 months — down by eight percentage points quarter on quarter. 

The pub is ‘all things to all people’

Pubs are unique in that they can deliver on so many different occasion types. At their core, pubs are a facilitator of sociable experience, putting them in prime position to succeed as consumers increase both casual and spontaneous trips to hospitality. Whether it be high energy, like live music and competitive socialising, or low tempo, like board games and a filling Sunday lunch, understanding your specific consumer need states is key in delivering excellence. 

Resilience in times of trouble

It’s been a turbulent few years for the hospitality market. Pubs have adapted and innovated over the last couple of years, embracing the changing consumer needs for experience while daring to try new things. Levelling up their offer to compete shows how dynamic this typically ‘traditional’ sector really is, and instills genuine optimism for the sector moving forwards. 

Dani said: “It’s been a turbulent few years for the pub sector, and while we are by no means out of the woods just yet, our research reveals signs that the spending confidence of consumers is increasing and some cost pressures are easing.

“Pubs are unique in their ability to provide an environment that is simultaneously informal and welcoming, making them the perfect playground for the memorable, social experiences that consumers are prioritising.

“By striking the right balance of value and quality, suppliers and operators can look forward to solid growth over the rest of 2024.” 

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Crisp Malt, with its renowned floor maltings established in 1870 in Norfolk, and Admiral Maltings, an artisan maltster from California’s Bay Area in the United States, are undertaking the collaboration.

The seeds of this transcontinental alliance were planted a decade ago when Admiral Maltings co-founders Ron Silberstein, Dave McLean, and Curtis Davenport first visited Crisp’s facilities and one of its barley growers at Branthill Farm, in Norfolk.

As a long-time customer who cherished Crisp’s floor-malted offerings during his previous tenure as a brewer, Ron was especially enamored with the traditional techniques still employed at the historic English maltings.

“We spent half the day there being shown around,” he said. “It was fantastic.” For the American craft maltsters, the visit provided an inspiring glimpse into an age-old malting process used for centuries before modern industrial methods largely replaced it.

It wasn’t until the 2022 Craft Brewers Conference in Minneapolis that the idea to collaborate would germinate. Ron, Crisp technical director Dr Dave Griggs, and others started chatting about how breweries frequently team up on collaboration brews. “What’s stopping maltsters from doing collaborations?” someone posed. Just like that, the idea took shape.

“Why don’t we swap barleys and do this joint project where Admiral will malt UK barley, and we’ll malt US barley?” David recalled. “Then we’ll get respected brewers in the respective countries to brew with it.”

After a brief false start in early 2023, a plan to launch the collaboration finally crystallised. In January this year, Crisp sent Admiral a container of heritage Haná barley, a landrace variety with roots dating back to the 1850s Moravian Empire in what is now the Czech Republic.

In return, Admiral will ship Butta 12, a unique variety developed by past plant breeder Dr Lynn Gallagher at the University of California Davis, to be floor malted at Crisp’s historic facility. The second iteration of the collaboration will take place next year.

For the two maltsters, this first-ever international collaboration is about much more than swapping unique grain stocks. It’s a celebration of the ancient art of floor malting itself, a craft that connects modern artisans to the earliest techniques for producing quality malts.

“This is focusing a spotlight on the renewal of a traditional method that people have passed by in favour of cheaper labour and less space,” said Ron. “It’s a celebration of floor malting, a celebration of variety, and their contributions to flavor in what we’re doing.”

Crisp Malt’s Dr David Griggs

By resurrecting heritage barley landraces like Haná and exploring their expression through a traditional floor malting regime, the collaboration taps into the rich history and provenance of the grains themselves. It’s an opportunity to experience these varieties as they were originally manifested centuries ago.

While celebrating tradition lies at the heart of this collaboration, it also presents an opportunity to empirically study the nuances that traditional floor malting can impart.

As David Griggs explained, the gentle, low-airflow environment of a floor malthouse allows subtleties to be preserved that modern pneumatic malting may strip away. “You go into the floor boxes, it’s like a cathedral. You could hear a pin drop in there… there’s no airflow,” he describes. “I think we’re losing things in the big airflow plants which we’re retaining in the floor malting.”

Prior analytical research done by Crisp, comparing its floor malts to pneumatically produced versions, revealed distinct differences in the volatile organic compound profiles. “If you look at the mass spec fingerprint, there were peaks present in the floor malt which weren’t there, or were much reduced, in the pneumatic malt,” said David.

While they didn’t analyse whether those specific compounds imparted flavor differences, David said “it doesn’t take too much of a leap of imagination” to connect those chemical distinctions to the malt flavour dissimilarities that brewers widely report between floor and pneumatic malts.

What’s clear is that Crisp’s research exposed quantifiable variations resulting from each malting regime’s process. “We also showed a difference between varieties,” David added, underscoring how a barley’s specific genetics intersect with the malting house’s methodology to create unique sensory profiles.

By supplying both Admiral-malted and Crisp-malted versions of the same Haná barley variety, this collaboration provides a rare opportunity to explore those interplaying impacts of variety and process in a head-to-head comparison detached from other variables.

While the collaboration will provide an avenue for research, it seems the most compelling analysis may come from the subjective impressions of the brewers and drinkers experiencing these transatlantic malts side-by-side. David concludes that there is a difference. Now it’s a matter of rendering it experientially through this symbolic grain swap.

Brewers get their hands on the first iteration of Admiral-malted Haná over the coming months.

• Jesse Bullard is the founder of Cowpunch Creative.

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Consumers are increasingly looking at whether brands conduct their business in a sustainable manner when making purchasing decisions.

Roland Pahl

Global advisory firm Deloitte’s Sustainable Consumer 2023 report states that more than half of shoppers believe a business’s commitment to climate change issues can influence their trust in the organisation.

Market research company Mintel’s 2024 Global Consumer Trends report reinforces this sentiment, stating that: “To stay ahead of their competitors, brands need to revisit their long-term projections to demonstrate meaningful and measurable progress towards sustainability targets, and quickly make changes based on changing circumstances.”

The direction of progress is clear: companies whose revenues depend on consumer spending cannot ignore the public’s demand for sustainable strategies. Half-hearted attempts at environmental activities will allow other companies with more robust credentials to gain a competitive advantage. Any actions must be authentic, however, otherwise allegations of greenwashing may be raised.

Beer manufacturers — as for other industries — are also facing increased pressure from international regulations to improve their environmental, social, and governance procedures. In the US, the Securities and Exchange Commission recently released the final version of its Climate-Related Disclosure requirements, requiring large publicly traded companies to disclose their scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions. Similarly, in the European Union, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive requires companies to disclose the social and environmental impact of their business and how climate change affects them.

In beer production, what does sustainability and environmental impact actually mean? For many people, the focus might be on locally-sourced and ecologically-friendly ingredients, low-impact or recyclable packaging, reduced use of water, and a low carbon footprint for transportation.

Yet we also need to think about the whole value chain in brewing. Filtration is a key part of the process and contributes to the overall sustainability of a product. The removal of sediments of yeast, hops, barley, and malt is crucial in brewing as these are organic materials that will continue to change a beer’s characteristics if they remain in the liquid.

Filtering them out helps producers meet international standards on safety and quality, and ensures that the product is fit for human consumption and tastes and looks as marketed. Maintaining consistent standards requires good water quality, microbial stabilisation, sterile air, removal of contaminants, clarification, and final stabilisation and filtration before reaching the filling line.

Filtration in beer production has traditionally been done using a mineral called diatomaceous earth (DE), a powder made from fossilised algae, known as diatoms. It can be put into canisters or on mesh plates to filter the liquid and its single-cell structure can trap and absorb impurities. DE has a multitude of uses — it was used in the second world war to filter drinking water for the US army and can be used as a pesticide. In small amounts it can also be used in toothpaste and cosmetics, acting as an abrasive agent, detoxifier, or skin moisturiser.

However, there are factors to consider when using DE in large volumes. It can cause respiratory, eye, and skin problems, and is potentially carcinogenic. Breweries must implement any necessary health and safety protection for employees, and food safety standard regulations also require analyses of both the dry DE powder and the beer after filtration.

From an environmental standpoint, every kilogram of dry power used creates 3kg of waste sludge, which must be disposed of and usually ends up in landfill. Using DE for filtration in beer also uses more water than other more modern filter systems.

As an alternative, beer can be filtered using systems that do not require DE. Crossflow membrane filtration is one system where the liquid flows tangentially across the membrane, which then traps the sediment of yeast, hops, barley and malt. The production of these systems generates up to 40% less carbon dioxide (CO2) than is used in the mining, transportation and disposal of DE. Crossflow membrane filtration of beer also requires fewer steps than using DE, resulting in up to 40% less water used.

Additionally, cold-water filtration through crossflow membranes negates the need for flash (quick) pasteurisation with a heat exchanger in order to create microbiological stabilisation, therefore reducing the amount of energy required. As well as the improved environmental impact of using crossflow membranes, these filtration systems have lower operational costs as there is no need to continually purchase and dispose of DE.

Pressure from social and political angles is slowly driving change. Astute brewers know that doing the bare minimum to comply with legislative directives will not be enough in the long run. To enhance their reputation and maintain consumer loyalty, these beer producers will be implementing new procedures and modernising their systems to lay the groundwork for a better, more sustainable future.

About the author

Roland Pahl is a beer production expert at Pall Corporation. He has worked in brewing research and education for more than two decades.

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When we launched the fresh ale concept last year, our hope was that this could be the start of an evolution to help save cask ale. After having significant success ourselves with the product (which is now in over 100 pubs), we are delighted that CMBC has entered the category by introducing three fresh ales of their own.

Fresh Ale is a product that has significant benefits for the cask ale market, not only as it bridges the gap between craft beer, cask ale, and lager, but it also brings innovation and a younger demographic to the cask end of the bar.

For the operator, it provides a product that has a 30-day shelf life, making it feasible to a much wider range of outlets than traditional cask. All too often a pint of cask ale can be disappointing, and often this is largely due to the lack of throughput, resulting from too many beers on the bar. Fresh ale comes with a guarantee of flavour and condition.

We completely agree with CMBC in that fresh ale is designed to breathe energy and innovation into the cask end of the bar and is in no way the beginning of the end of cask ale. Currently, the majority of drinkers look to the ‘keg’ end of the bar to make their ‘bar call’. If the introduction of fresh ale means operators can begin to re-evaluate how they position categories on the bar (ale, lager, cider etc) then cask ale will naturally get far more viability and footfall.

We would like to see all ales, including the likes of Camden Pale and Neck Oil, at one end of the bar, with lagers and ciders at the other. This will inevitably position cask ale among keg ale and with that generate a far greater visibility to the category we love and the one that needs attention (cask).

We created fresh ale to reinvigorate cask ale, and we believe that CMBC coming into the category can only be a good thing for cask ale as a whole.

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