Year in Review: Proximity Malt in Laurel, Delaware

Special thanks to Morning Star Publications and Laurel Star to including Proximity Malt in their “Year in Review” article!  We are so pleased to be a part of the community!  Looking forward to starting production in 2017!

“Old grain elevator to get new use as a malt plant (2/18)- The shuttered Laurel Grain Company on alternate U.S. 13 south of Laurel is being rehabilitated for use as a malting facility. Proximity Malt, based in Milwaukee, bought the property in December and plans to start turning out malted barley, an ingredient in many beers, in 2017.
The company will sell the malt to brewers in the mid-Atlantic area, said vice president of sales and marketing Amy Germershausen. When it is fully operational, the plant will employ 20 to 25 people and will turn out 25,000 tons of malt a year.
The company, which was started last year, is also redoing an old plating factory in Milwaukee as a collaboration center, where recipes will be tried out and its headquarters will be located. Using old industrial sites means that farmland doesn’t have to be sacrificed for new construction, the company said. It also fits in with Proximity’s focus on sustainability.
Germershausen said that both the Colorado and Laurel sites were selected because of their proximity to areas where there is stable barley production. In 2015, 22,000 acres throughout Delaware were planted in barley, producing 1.76 million bushels of the grain, according to Delaware Department of Agriculture spokesman Daniel Shortridge. The barley is primarily used in animal feed, Shortridge said.
Shortridge said that the Delaware of Agriculture is happy to see the malt plant coming to Laurel. We’re pleased to see any new opportunity for Delaware growers, he said. Delaware agriculture is a diverse sector, and we welcome this type of investment that can provide new avenues for our state’s 2,500 family farmers.”

Read full story at:  http://www.laurelstar.com/index.cfm?ref=42578&ref2=607