October 20,  2020

Cherkizovo begins poultry sales to Saudi Arabia

Cherkizovo Group will start supplying chicken meat to Saudi Arabia, the company announced on October 13.

The first batch, produced at the group's Vasilyevskaya poultry farm in Penza, Russia, has already been shipped to Saudi Arabia. The cargo, which included boneless broiler chicken meat, will be unloaded in the Saudi port of Jeddah, undergo the necessary customs procedures and delivered to local markets.

The chickens, bred specifically for export to the Saudi market, are raised on a diet of vegetable feed at the Vasilyevskaya poultry farm. The chickens are then slaughtered manually, in full compliance with the halal requirements specific to the Saudi market.

Cherkizovo's compliance with the halal process was confirmed by two Saudi Food and Drug Authority audits. These were carried out in 2020 and included a food safety review. In addition, chicken meat produced by the poultry farm was inspected by TUV, a testing agency authorised by the Saudi veterinary authorities to ensure the imported animal products' compliance with Saudi requirements.

Saudi Arabia is one of the most lucrative markets for Cherkizovo Group. The kingdom imports over 700,000 tonnes of poultry meat annually.

"We expect the successful sale of the group's trial batches of chicken meat to pave the way for a lasting and mutually beneficial partnership with the largest Saudi poultry meat distributors and processors, who have already shown a lot of interest in Russian products," said Andrei Terekhin, head of industry unions and government relations at  Cherkizovo Trade House.

"The Saudi market will remain one of the group's main strategic export development targets over the next few years,"

- Cherkizovo