Bud and Barley

Budweiser and Idaho barley. Front page article in the Idaho Statesman with the following headline: "Budweiser makers use Idaho for beer tutorial". That piqued my interest so I called administrator for the Idaho Barley Commission, Kelly Olson. "It's really pretty exciting to see it featured front page of the largest daily newspaper in the state. It has been well known for many years that Anheuser Busch is the largest contract buyer and overall buyer of Idaho barley. They're the biggest beer manufacturer in the country and they get at least 40 to 50% of their barley needs from Idaho. So it's a big barley production program and they have a large processing capacity in this state so it's a really good fit. They work very closely with their producers. They offer a competitive contract and then they work hand-in-hand with the producers on production and quality issues. One of their more recent points of focus has been on proving sustainability of barley production, particularly in the area of efficient water use and that's really being driven by several factors. The company itself has a global environmental initiative. They are a global beer maker, the largest beer maker in the world and they want to lead in environmental and sustainable production of beer and that flows down to the raw material supply side of the business which is barley.