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- Not malted: the Russian Federation will monitor the volume of raw materials for beer production
Russia will start tracking the volume of malt used for beer production, Izvestia has learned. Currently, the Russian Federation produces more foamy beverage than can be produced with the existing quantities of raw materials. The movement of vegetable products will be viewed within the framework of the federal information system "Grain" to exclude adulteration. It uses other components - oats, rice, wheat, which is not warned to buyers.
What falsified beer is made of
At the last meeting of the State Commission, the profile of which is combating the illegal circulation of industrial products (its work is supervised by First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov), experts from various departments discussed, among other things, counterfeiting in the beer industry and the tools that will help to combat it. As a result, Denis Manturov instructed the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Finance and the CRPT labeling operator to assess whether it is necessary to trace the movement of malt along the supply chain in the federal information system "Grain" during the first quarter.
The Ministry of Agriculture is responsible for this system, while CRPT and the Ministry of Industry and Trade are the operators of the "Honest Mark" system of labeling and traceability of goods. It is the latter that already includes finished beer products, their volumes are tracked from April 2023, depending on the type of beverage.
The authorities intend to understand how effective it is to compare data from these two systems, explained Izvestia's source, who attended the State Commission meeting. Officials believe that such an approach will allow to assess the level of counterfeit and further exclude it, and thus improve the safety and quality of products, he said.
Baltika reminded Izvestia that today there are different estimates of the illegal market: according to the Ministry of Finance, this figure is 10%, and the Center for Consumer Market Development of the Faculty of Economics at Moscow State University estimates it at 22%.
Malt is sprouted and then dried grain used for beer production. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, in January-November 2024 Russia produced 1.6 million tons of malt, which is 1% more than in the same period of 2023. At the same time, the output of malt extract for the first 11 months of last year increased 2.7 times to the level of 2023 and amounted to 14.9 thousand tons. According to official statistics for the I-III quarters of 2024, the Russian Federation produced 603.8 million decaliters of beer, for the same period of 2023 - 549.7 million decaliters. What part of the beverage is made of malt, the data does not specify.
At present, in some cases, malt is replaced with sugar, glucose, unmalted grain, such as oats, rice, wheat, corn, and less often corn, as well as flakes of different grains, Oleg Pavlov, head of the Public Consumer Initiative, told Izvestia.
- This allows you to significantly reduce production costs and increase output, but it can negatively affect the taste of beer," he added. - Especially when it comes to classic varieties. At the same time, if the producer complies with all the established requirements, declares in good faith on the label about the malt substitutes used and does not allow manipulation with the name of the product - beer or beer product, there is no violation. The main threat is the hidden substitution of malt for other raw materials, as well as the use of other undeclared components that consumers are not informed about.
Yuri Vasin, Advisor to the President of the Anti-Counterfeiting Association, noted that now "1 kg of malt is used to make 1 ton of beer, which, of course, is impossible; this is especially true for the brewing industry, where the problem of shadow production remains significant and exceeded 10% before the introduction of labeling".
Theillegal segment of brewing products reaches 10%, and the bulk of unrecorded products, about 80%, is concentrated in the draught segment, added Vyacheslav Mamontov, Executive Director of the Association of Beer, Malt and Beverage Producers. In particular, we are talking about draught beer stores, the so-called nalivayki.
How this approach has affected the dairy industry
The Ministry of Agriculture told Izvestia that the agency will work out the instructions of the State Commission in due time. The Ministry of Industry and Trade added that the integration of the systems "Grain" and "Honest Mark" "will help to obtain information on the origin of raw materials from which each specific unit of brewery products, subject to labeling by means of identification".
- The available possibilities of the labeling system will allow the consumer to receive reliable information about the purchased goods - for example, information about raw materials, as well as to reduce possible risks associated with the appearance of counterfeit brewery products in circulation, - emphasized the Ministry.
As explained to "Izvestia" in the press service of the CRPT, the mechanism of reconciliation of raw materials and the volume of finished products has already been tested earlier, it works effectively in the case of reducing the share of counterfeit in the market.
- Thanks to the integration of the Rosselkhoznadzor system "Mercury", which monitors the volume of dairy raw materials, and "Honest Mark", which fixes the final product, over the past two years it was possible to reduce the level of counterfeiting in dairy products from 30% to 0.03%. The same mechanics are applied in the case of caviar, canned food, water," they noted there.
"Baltika" considers the initiative to add malt to the list of products that should be entered into the FGIS "Grain" logical, the company told the editorial board. This system already includes malting barley and other unprocessed grains for beer.
- The consistent extension of the traceability chain to the grain product, malt, is another tool to increase control, which could contribute to its whitewashing. The Russian beer market is the most disciplined compared to other categories of alcoholic beverages, and there are no counterfeit or health hazardous products. The main violation of legislation is tax evasion and violation of reporting and fixation of products in the EGAIS (traceability system of alcoholic products. - "Izvestia"). The company hopes that the measures taken by the state to combat illegal producers contribute to the reduction of the shadow sector," it said.
The Association of Beer, Malt and Beverage Producers supports the initiative. According to Vyacheslav Mamontov, in recent years the malt industry has significantly increased production volumes, this is happening against the background of beer volume growth and whitewashing of the beer industry. The demand for products on the domestic market is growing, brewers are experimenting, launching new flavors to meet consumer demands, and malt producers are developing in response.
