Argentine barley look for new markets and one of the destinations that was incorporated this year It’s India. Quilmes Brewery and Malting sent two shipments of cereal towards the most populated country in the world, which added to its commercial operations with Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Chile.
The company exported more than 970,000 tons of barley and malt during 2025, for a value greater than US$370 million. For this year, it plans to place abroad around 600,000 tons of barley and between 220,000 and 330,000 tons of malt.
The company’s movement is within an activity with weight within agro-industrial foreign trade. According to a report from the Grain Exchange released by the Argentine Agroindustrial Council (CAA), Argentine exports of grain barley reached the 1.96 million tons between January and March 2026. This is a 67.3% growth compared to the same period of the previous year.
In value, the external sales of the barley complex they added US$569.9 million during the first quarter, with a year-on-year increase of 30.1%. The sector represented 4.7% of the agroindustrial exports surveyed.
While grain barley exports advanced 67.3% a volume during the first quartershipments of malting barley fell 34,9%. Malt, for its part, registered a 11.4% improvementuntil reaching the 119,396 tons.
A part is sold like grain and another goes through an industrial process to become maltone of the main inputs for brewing beer. This transformation allows value to be added to the raw material before it goes abroad.
In Argentina, Quilmes works with a network of more than 1,300 agricultural producers and participates in that chain with a production that exceeds 1.2 million tons of barley. In addition, it has two malting plants in the province of Buenos Aires, with a joint production capacity of 470,000 tons.
The possibility of expand commercial destinations It is one of the points that the company highlights. “When we compare the variety of products and the alternatives that we have in Argentina with those of other countries in the region and the world, we see a very great potential,” he told Clarion Juan Mitjans, director of Public and Government Affairs of CervecerÃa y MalterÃa Quilmes for Argentina and Uruguay.
Barley production is also linked to the development of technology and varieties adapted to local conditions. According to company data, its Tres Arroyos research center developed 20 varieties over more than 50 years, representing around 70% of the planted area with this crop in the country.