Cargill is closing its malthouse in Salzgitter, Germany, removing around 80,000 tonnes of annual malt production capacity from the market. The move marks the end of a long decline at a site that once played a significant role in supplying malt to both German and international brewing customers.
The Salzgitter site was one of Cargill’s early major production locations in Germany. According to Cargill, the oil mill and malthouse at the site began operations in 1993. The company’s German website still describes Salzgitter as an integrated location with rapeseed oil, rapeseed meal and brewing malt production. It also points to a combined energy concept, with a gas turbine covering the site’s electricity and steam needs and waste heat being used in the malt tower.
The closure comes several years after Axereal, France’s largest grain cooperative, acquired Cargill’s malt business through its subsidiary Boortmalt. The transaction, completed at the end of 2019 (inside.beer, 4.11.2019) included 16 malthouses in nine countries, around 600 employees and a combined annual capacity of 1.7 million tonnes. The deal lifted Boortmalt to around 3 million tonnes of capacity across 27 malthouses on five continents, making it the world’s largest maltster at the time.
However, Salzgitter remained a special case. While Boortmalt acquired the former Cargill Malt business, the Salzgitter malthouse continued to operate under a toll-malting agreement with Cargill. In December 2025, Boortmalt announced that this agreement would not be renewed because it no longer reflected current market conditions (inside.beer, 17.12.2025).
The closure also reflects a dramatic reversal in international malt flows. During the period of strong demand and trade tensions between China and Australia, Boortmalt had expanded aggressively, including at its giant Antwerp site in Belgium. According to industry sources, up to 70,000 tonnes of malt from Salzgitter were exported to Boortmalt for several years. More recently, however, the business appears to have turned from an export into an import-driven market, with reported volumes of up to 70,000 tonnes moving in the opposite direction.
The shutdown is part of a much broader restructuring of the European malt industry. Boortmalt said in December 2025 that global beer consumption had declined following the inflationary pressures of 2023, reducing malt demand. The company also pointed to weaker whisky production in the UK and Ireland, where distillers have been adapting inventories to changing market dynamics. As part of the same package, Boortmalt permanently closed its mothballed Gembloux malthouse in Belgium, kept two Australian plants mothballed and planned temporary stoppages in Hungary. (inside.beer, 17.12.2025)
Germany has been hit particularly hard. The closure of the Boortmalt/Cargill site in Salzgitter follows the exit of Soufflet Malt from Germany (operated under the Durst Malz name) (inside.beer 9.12.2025), the closure of the Bestmalz malthouse in Wallertheim and the shutdown of Malteurop in Heidenau (inside.beer, 31.3.2026). Taken together, these closures remove around 350,000 tonnes of annual German malting capacity, corresponding to roughly 20 million hl of beer. A previous market assessment put this reduction at around 17% of Germany’s total malting capacity.
The pressure is being driven above all by weak beer demand. According to the German Federal Statistical Office, German beer sales fell by 6.0% in 2025 to around 7.8 billion litres, the lowest level since records began in 1993. These figures exclude non-alcoholic beer, malt beverages and beer imported from outside the EU.
At the same time, capacity is not disappearing everywhere. Soufflet Malt, part of the French agricultural group InVivo, is expanding its malthouse in Strasbourg, just across the German border. The company plans to increase annual capacity there from around 90,000 tonnes to 130,000 tonnes, strengthening a site that could also supply customers previously served by German plants (inside.beer, 27.06.2026).
For Salzgitter, the loss of the malthouse means the end of a production activity that had been closely linked to the site’s energy and industrial setup for more than three decades. The oil mill, however, is expected to remain in operation. What disappears is another sizeable piece of Germany’s traditional malt infrastructure — and another sign that the malt industry is now restructuring more quickly than many breweries themselves.
