A stalwart with "truly staggering" knowledge of Norfolk's world-renowned malting barley industry is looking forward to his first summer off in decades after retiring this week.
Commercial director Bob King has stepped down after 35 years at Crisp Malt, based in Great Ryburgh, near Fakenham, which processes the county's finest barley into malts for beer and whisky manufacturers.
He was responsible for buying more than half a million tonnes of grain per year for the group's maltings in the UK and Europe.
He retired on his 65th birthday with a message of thanks to the growers, brokers and merchants in "the most social part of the grain industry - malt barley".
And after a total of more than four decades in farming, he is finally looking forward to a summer without having to worry about the harvest.
Mr King, who lives at Gayton, near King's Lynn, said: "The first thing is to have a summer off. All these years in agriculture I have never had a summer away, there has always been a harvest to deal with.
"I think the hardest thing will be to avoid going into fields to see what is going on. But after all these years, if it rains during harvest, I will still be thinking about all the issues farmers are facing."
Mr King was instrumental in forming the ABC grower group in 2007, along with Cyril Adams and Tony Banham of Norfolk grain merchants Adams & Howling and H Banham, respectively.
The partnership offers premium contracts to farmers growing high-quality malting barley, and it has expanded from 42,000 tonnes in its first year to more than 100,000 tonnes for the coming 2023 crop.
In total, the group has supplied more than a million tonnes to Crisp's East Anglian maltings in Ryburgh and Ditchingham.
"When I first started here at Ryburgh everything was bought post-harvest, it was all bought on sample," said Mr King. "That is the big change, now everything is on some form of long-term supply agreement like the ABC group, where there is a dialogue between growers and us as the end users.
"We made it very obvious from day one that the merchants had a place in the supply chain, to get everyone around the table to talk to farmers about supply contracts. It has allowed us to get the barley varieties grown that we want, and to work with the growers to understand what they can and cannot produce.
"Malting barley is not a defined commodity. It is not like wheat where you have a definite specification, there is a little bit of myth and magic in it because it varies so much from year to year."
Mr King said the demand for Norfolk malt has also evolved during his time in the industry.
Initially it was mainly from large beer breweries, he said, but today an increasing proportion is destined for Scotland to be distilled into whisky, and in recent years the boom in craft brewing has created more new customers for specialist malts, both in Norfolk and around the world.
Barley farmers, traders and maltsters gathered for a lunch at the Banningham Crown to celebrate Mr King's retirement.
Among them were Matthew Adams from Adams & Howling, who said: "His knowledge of malting barley and its industry is truly staggering, there is hardly anyone who compares.
"He is always one of the first in the Norfolk fields at harvest time, reviewing the quality and how best to manage the crop to achieve the best premiums.
"He is a strong negotiator, but always prepared to offer balance to pricing and deliveries for growers to achieve the best price possible for their malting crop, which certainly is reflected in the ABC group tonnages. He will be sadly missed."
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