The world’s biggest hop specialist firm – which has a base in Kent – has launched a campaign encouraging the industry to unite to combat the challenges it faces.

BarthHaas, which has offices in Paddock Wood, says growers and brewers need to work together in the face of climate change, soaring raw material costs and energy price hikes.

Kent is one of the country’s biggest producers of hops – the key ingredient of beer – a crop which once provided Kent’s agricultural economic backbone.

BarthHaas’ international campaign, called Thriving Together in an Ever-Changing World, aims to draw attention to the issues with the hope of pulling for the common good.

Head of purchasing at the firm, Stephan Schinagi, said: “Many of the older hop varieties that are well established and loved by brewers around the world are unable to realise their full potential in these changing climatic conditions.

"New, sustainable breeds of hops that are better able to tolerate drought stress or are more resistant to disease and thus require less use of pesticides, will serve the entire industry with regard to safeguarding raw materials.”

He explains climate change and the extreme weather conditions it brings are causing crops to struggle and “increasingly, frequent grain and hop supply fluctuations”. There were “lower yields of the 2022 crop, particularly in Europe” he adds. Along with the other concerns it means the sector is facing “unprecedented economic challenges”.