10 Interesting Facts about Almarai Company you don’t know

The Almarai Company of Saudi Arabia is the largest poultry and dairy company in the Middle East, so it is highly possible you have eaten at least one of their products from their various product lines. Below are some highly important and very interesting facts about the company and I am sure you don’t know about most of them.

1. The company had been founded back in 1977 by Prince Sultan Bin Saud in Riyadh. In 2005 the management of the company turned it into a joint stock company.
2. Almarai has one of the largest employee workforces in the Kingdom. The number of employees in Almarai was an astounding 38,300 up from just 5638 employees 11 year ago.
3. The company has had a diversified range of products since 2005. The company introduced new sectors of production such as long term dairy, butters and juice sector in 2005. These new products comprised of 34 percent of the total products of the company. Although previously 90 percent of the sales were of the dairy products, now these products don’t exceed 66 percent due to the popularity of the company’s non dairy products.
4. Almarai also entered the sector of bakeries production once it had obtained the company L’Usine for the Western Bakeries. Almarai, in the same year, established a common project with the Greek company Chipita and Al Alyan Investment Company to produce food.
5. The Almarai Company also obtained their international IS0 22000 quality certification in the agricultural crops domain, back in 2008.
6. The Almarai Company started its production of poultry in 2009, once it had acquired Hail Agriculture Development Company and the HADCO Company. In the same year Almarai also subsequently entered the juice sector by partnering with the Global giant Pepsi Co.
7. The Almarai Company has been in possession of farms in Argentina ever since 2011. Almarai became the owners of Fondomonte in 2011, which in itself owned 3 farms in Argentina, in order to provide food for the animals. It is reported that the Fondomonte Company was sold for $ 83 million. The company also then established United Farmers once they had taken over Continental Farmers Group.
8. In 2012 a boycott was done of all the Almarai poultry products. A substantial number of Saudi citizens launched a campaign aimed at boycotting the Almarai poultry range because of the increase in prices. Almarai replied that the price was increased because cost of production had increased, however the trade and industry ministry in Saudi Arabia forced the company to lower the price.
9. The Almarai Company has an astonishing market share of 44 percent in the entire Gulf Cooperation Countries, for their dairy products. These statistics are from 2014.
10. Additionally last year, the market value of the Almarai Company was estimated to be at $ 12 billion. In fact by the end of 2014, the value of the market share of the Almarai Company had already surpassed $ 12 billion by reaching $ 12.2 billion.