The company has launched a major expansion in the poultry sector with the installation of a state of the art system that can produce and process 100 million birds a year.

The poultry business has the Parent, Hatchery, Broiler, Processing and Feed Mill departments and employs over 1500 employees from different nationalities.

The new development includes new rearing and laying farms, an automated Petersime hatchery, new broiler and breeder feed mills, new broiler farms, a processing plant for 24,000 birds/hour based on the latest technology from Meyn and Ishida, and an expanded distribution network.

The company says that the new capabilities will come on-line over the next 18 months, and will enable Almarai to be one of the leading commercial poultry producers in the region.

Last year the company saw sales turnover of $1.8 billion. For the first six month of the current year the company has seen turnover rise by 13.9 per cent.

The group already has a staff of 19,000 and part of the expansion plans includes a recruitment drive. For more information on the recruitment programme, click here.

The company under the chairmanship of HH Prince Sultan bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Kabeer not only produces poultry and dairy products but also has a division producing fruit juices, which was established in 1999, and a bakery division following the acquisition of Western Bakeries in 2007.

In 2009-10 the company moved into the infant nutrition market in a joint venture with Mead Johnson Nutrition forming the International Pediatric Nutrition Company (IPNC) and building the first plant dedicated to the sector in the region, at Al Kharj. The dairy section has a herd of 60,000 Saudi Holstein dairy cows producing 800 million litres of milk a year. It supplies 89 depots and 41,797 customers in six states.