Al Watania Poultry, the largest broiler producer in the Middle East, has signed an agreement with Cobb Europe for the establishment of a grandparent operation in Saudi Arabia to supply its own broiler breeder requirements.
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 Dr 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 Dr Mohammed Al-Rahji for their continued commitment to supply high quality, affordable chicken meat to the Middle East,” said Mr 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-recognized 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 percent of the volume of chickens produced by its operations in Saudi Arabia and Egypt,” said Mr Casanovas.
“Al Watania has been a loyal supporter of Cobb for more than 15 years. I delivered the first broiler hatching eggs and first breeders when they were starting in poultry business 30 years ago, and I am delighted to see them grow to become the leader today” added Mohammed Chail.