International Malting Co. Announces Great Falls Plant

International Malting Co., LLC, informed Governor Judy
Martz on Tuesday, January 21, 2002, that it will start construction in May
on a 16-million-bushel malting plant on the north side of Great Falls.

When completed, the plant will employ 34 people and will require the
production of 20 million bushels of malting barley from Montana, the
Dakotas, Wyoming and Idaho, according to David Brunette, corporate director
of manufacturing operations for International Malting.

IMC, based in Milwaukee, Wis., is a worldwide company that has been in
business since 1865. It presently operates four malting plants in the United
States under the name of Froedtert Malt, and also operates malt plants in
Canada, France, New Zealand and Australia.

"I am absolutely elated that IMC has chosen Great Falls as the home of its
new western U.S. malting plant, and I want to thank the large number of
state, local and private officials who have worked hard for the past 16
months to make this happen," says Gov. Martz, who announced the decision in
her annual State of the State Address to a joint session of the Montana
Legislature.

Brunette says IMC first began looking at possible sites in Montana in 2001.
The site on the north side of Great Falls is adjacent to the proposed
NorthWestern Energy plant. A number of synergies exist between the two
companies, he says, including the required electricity for the malting plant
and heat that can be used in the malting process.

The plant will require approximately 32 truckloads of malting barley per day
from northcentral Montana, plus an equal amount of barley arriving to the
facility by rail. The plant will ship just over 60 rail cars of malt per
week to brewers and other malt customers in the western United States and to
exporters on the West Coast.

To obtain the 16 million bushels of malting grade barley that the plant
requires, IMC will purchase an estimated 20 million bushels of barley from
farmers. Montana growers sold 7.5 million bushels of barley to all malting
companies in 2001, according to a recent survey from the Montana
Agricultural Statistics Service.

"We have worked hard to attract malting companies because we want Montana to
be the malt capital of the world. We have the climate, the soils, the
location and the motivated growers necessary to make this happen," says
Ralph Peck, director of the Montana Department of Agriculture.

At the current $4 per bushel price, the malting barley processed at the
Great Falls plant will have a $64 million impact in grower sales alone, Peck
notes. Prior to recent drought years, Montana was the second largest barley
producer in the United States. The IMC plant will provide the market
assurance to develop additional growing areas and new irrigation, he says.

Brunette says the decision on a location came down to Great Falls or
Cheyenne, Wyo. Great Falls was closer to barley producers, sitting on the
southern edge of the Golden Triangle growing area.

IMC supplies malt to some of the largest brewing companies worldwide,
including Miller Brewing and Anheuser-Busch in the United States and Grupo
Modelo in Mexico. Malt also is used in foods such as breads, malted milk and
candy. Byproducts from the malting process are used for a protein-rich
animal feed.

The project would not have been possible without the assistance of a large
number of people, Brunette says. Among them are the Montana Department of
Agriculture; the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity; the Departments
of Commerce, Natural Resources, Environmental Quality, Transportation and
Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and local economic development including the City
of Great Falls and Cascade County.