March 11, 2013

 
Al Watania, Cobb to establish grandparent operation in Saudi Arabia

An agreement to establish a grandparent operation in Saudi Arabia to supply its own broiler breeder requirements was signed between Al Watania Poultry, the largest broiler producer in the Middle East, and Cobb Europe.

This operation will be initially designed to produce and hatch two million Cobb500 parent stock per year. With this agreement Al Watania and Cobb strengthen their partnership which exists in both Saudi Arabia and in Egypt, where Al Watania produces over 4.5 million Cobb500 parent stock per year and has helped Cobb in becoming the market leader for the last four years.

The contracts were exchanged between Al Watania's chief executive officer Mohammed Al-Rahji and Cobb Europe's sales and technical director Pelayo Casanovas. Also present for Al Watania were chief finance officer Essam Al-Hodeithy and Eng Rabea, grandparent general manager, and for Cobb Mohammed Chail, Middle East business development manager.

"We admire Sheikh Suleiman and Mohammed Al-Rahji for their continued commitment to supply high quality, affordable chicken meat to the Middle East," said Casanovas. "With this agreement we strengthen a partnership that will maintain Al Watania and Cobb as key players in this market."

Al Watania currently produces a total of 4.6 million broilers per week, has a well-recognised brand and continues to find opportunities to grow in other parts of the Middle East.

"The organisation has great confidence in the economic advantages of the Cobb500 package, which delivers benefits to every level of the integration and currently represents over 80% of the volume of chickens produced by its operations in Saudi Arabia and Egypt," said Casanovas.