Wild to open its first food ingredients plant in Middle East
foods in Middle East and India, breaking ground on its first Middle
Eastern manufacturing plant to improve one-stop supply service to
the region.
Once completed the new facility, based in Dubai's tax free Jebel Ali Free Zone, will bring 75,000 tons of food ingredients online to the burgeoning market.
Wealthier middle classes and an increasingly diverse palate are driving the market for processed foods in the Middle East and India.
An integral component in such foods, ingredients and additives are enjoying growing sales on the back of this trend. In India alone, the market for processed foods is growing at over 12 per cent a year, propelling demand for flavours in the €187 million Indian flavours and fragrance market.
Privately-owned WILD said the new 5000m2 plant will feed the gulf states, North Africa, the Levant and India, and will lead to shorter production lead times for its customers.
The firm, that also supplies natural colours, has poured €22 million into the new venture, and is expected to invest "more capital in the next five years".
"The investment is a response to our company's double digit growth in the Middle East during the recent years. We are providing the much needed one-stop solution for our customers and partners in the region," Dr.Hans-Peter Wild, Wild's owner, told a press conference this week.
The new plant, says the German firm, will bring additional capacity to the firm's 14 other manufacturing facilities.
In a different sector but reflecting the movement of EU firms into the Middle East, leading European dairy group Arla, who's Lurpak brand already leads the Middle East's butter market, said recently it would move production of processed cheese at its Bislev Dairy in Denmark to Saudi Arabia.
