About Almarai
The Almarai success story began in 1976, when the chairman, HH Sultan Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al Kabeer recognized the potential to transform the traditional dairy farming in Saudi Arabia in order to meet the needs of a burgeoning domestic market. Under his visionary guidance and patronage numerous agricultural projects were developed towards achieving this objective, and what began with the processing of fresh milk and laban soon expanded into modern dairy farms and state-of-the-art processing plants.
In the early 90s, Almarai entered into a restructuring and reinvestment phase moving away from decentralized to centralized structure. The first central Processing Plant was commissioned replacing 5 decentralized plants. Almarai also established for large dairy farms in the central area replacing ten decentralized small farms. The investment phase created the base for Almarai to become a low cost producer in the region.
Since then, the company has continued to invest heavily in technologically advanced production facilities and recruiting the right caliber of people. A second and larger Central Processing Plant, incorporating a new cheese plant, was commissioned in the late 2005. Two new super farms were commissioned, bringing the total number of farms to seven. Today, Almarai is capable of serving high quality products to more than 43,500 customers within the GCC, on a daily basis.
In 2005, Almarai moved from being a privately owned Company to a publicly listed Company and today has over 70,000 shareholders.
In 2007, with the acquisition of Western Bakeries, based in Jeddah, the product range was expanded to include bakery products. Since the acquisition, we have developed our bakery business by the creation of Modern Food Industries, improved distribution, and product innovation. In addition during 2009, we commenced the construction of a new bakery facility in Al Kharj.
2009 saw the commencement of a new phase development of Almarai with initiatives for geographic expansion through the establishment of the joint venture with PepsiCo, International Dairy and Juice (IDJ), and investments in new product categories, proudly (through the acquisition of HADCO) .
In 2010, Almarai through a Joint Venture partnership with Mead Johnson Nutrition entered into the Infant Milk Formula category through the establishment of International Pediatric Nutrition Company (IPNC).
The success of Almarai is driven by its unique blend of state-of-the-art infrastructure (which includes farms, dairy, juice and bakery processing plants) and its unmatched marketing and distribution expertise, all of which are geared towards delivery a quality product to the consumer.
