Barley is an important agricultural product. Approximately 553 000 tonn is harvested each year. Almost all is being used as animal feed, while large amounts of barley malt for beer brewing is imported every year. The main objective of the project is to establish knowledge that enables increased use of Norwegian barley in food and drink through industrial-scale malting in a sustainable manner.
In the project research will be carried out in a number of topics including gaining consumers’ insight and explore the market potential for Norwegian malt in food and drinks, identify suitable genetic material and optimise agronomic management to produce barley with high yield and quality under Norwegian conditions, understand the malting process for Norwegian barley, design and testing of products based on Norwegian malt and explore the feasibility of utilizing brewing by-products as well as assessing the total sustainability impacts.
NORSUS is responsible for WP6 entitled Sustainability of Norwegian malt, which in this project includes all three pillars: environmental social matters and economy. The methodology of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) will be used.
The project is based on close cooperation between research institutions and industry partners. The focus will lie on production of malt and development of food and drink products based on Norwegian malt, but the assessments will also include primary production.
