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Almarai Company

Almarai is the largest integrated dairy foods company in the middle east.[1] The company was established in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1976 as a partnership between the Irish agri-foods pioneer Alastair McGuckian and his brother Paddy, and HH Prince Sultan bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Kabeer. HH Prince Sultan bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Kabeer, who continues to lead the company, recognized the potential to transform traditional methods of dairy farming to serve the needs of the rapidly expanding Saudi Arabian market. In the early 90’s Almarai entered into a restructuring phase moving away from a decentralized to a centralized structure. The first Central Processing Plant was commissioned replacing 5 decentralized plants. Almarai also established four large dairy farms in the Central area replacing ten decentralized small farms. Since then, the company has continued to invest heavily in technologically advanced production facilities and equipments. A second and larger Central Processing Plant incorporating a new cheese plant was commissioned in late 2005. A new super farm has been commissioned and a second one is currently under construction. In 2005, Almarai moved from being a privately-owned company to a publicly listed company and today has over 90,000 shareholders. During 2007, with the acquisition of Western Bakeries[3] (flagship brand – Lusine), Almarai extended its footprint in the food category in the region. Exceeding all expectations, the results for 2008 show Almarai generating a profit of SR 910.8 million from SR 667.3 million in 2007. With the acquisition of Western Bakeries, the product range has been expanded to include a range of bakery products as well as fresh and long-life dairy products, which are made primarily from fresh milk, fruit juices, cheese, butter and other non-dairy products.

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