The company has invested £6 million into a new peated malt production plant with storage facilities, the with capacity to produce 25,000 tonnes of peated malt per year.
Its bespoke design will allow Simpsons Malt to seamlessly monitor and tweak phenol levels – the measurement of how lightly or heavily peated the malt is – to customers’ desired specifications.
The development also included an abatement technology in the form of air centrifuges which will reduce particulate emissions by up to 90%.
This latest investment followed the commissioning of a new germination and kilning vessel (GKV) which became fully operational in late 2024.
Boosted production capacity
Since installation, the GKV has increased annual malt production capacity by up to 15,000 tonnes per year, bringing total production capacity at the Berwick-upon-Tweed site up to 260,000 tonnes per year.
Groundwork on the GKV started in May 2023 as part of a £10 million investment. It is the tenth GKV to be built at the company’s Tweed Valley Maltings, with the total capacity of the vessel being 400 tonnes per batch.
Tim McCreath, managing director at Simpsons Malt, said: “Investing regularly in our infrastructure is a key strategic and operational priority of our fifth-generation, family business, helping us to drive the quality, consistency and sustainability of our products and processes.
“In recent months, it has been fantastic to welcome many distillers to our Tweed Valley Maltings, where they have been able to witness not only the investments that have been made with the new GKV, but other projects including our Energy Centre development and the construction of ten new malt storage silos.”
Lower carbon footprint
Already boasting a lower carbon footprint than the industry average, the malt produced in the new GKV – and the other nine GKVs on site – also draw power from the site’s neighbouring Energy centre for the kilning stage.
Developed in partnership with AMP Clean Energy, the Energy Centre – comprising three 6MW biomass boilers and one 12MW electric boiler powered by curtailed wind energy – reduces carbon emissions from kilning by 90%.
This equates to a reduction in Scope 1 & 2 emissions at the Tweed Valley Maltings site of up to 80%, and up to 55% company-wide.
Meanwhile, craft baker Artisan Bakes is moving to a new production facility in Wakefield to support its ongoing expansion and better serve its customer base.
