BRF launches ‘world’s largest’ halal company
OneFood, based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), will run all of BRF’s halal meat operations, as the company looks to strengthen its ability to serve what it claims is a burgeoning global market of 1.8 billion people.
The new subsidiary will hold all BRF’s assets related to the production of halal meat: grain storage facilities, feed mills, chicken hatcheries, eight slaughterhouses in Brazil and one processing plant in the UAE will be incorporated into OneFood. Alongside this, BRF will fold the equity of Malaysia-based FFM Further Processing and the equity of certain distribution centres in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Oman and Kuwait into OneFood’s structure.
A new logo depicting a crescent moon – a popular motif in Islamic iconography – has been designed for OneFood. The word for crescent moon in Arabic is ‘hilal’, which sounds similar to halal. BRF hopes this subtle strategy will reinforce the message that OneFood is a halal-only meat brand for the Muslim community.
‘Accelerated growth’
Hitherto, BRF’s halal unit was called Sadia Halal, although other BRF-affiliated subsidiaries also produced halal meat. Now, everything concerning the halal market will be streamlined through OneFood.
“By creating a local company to consolidate our operations in Islamic markets, we moved further up the production chain to get closer to our consumers, which should support the accelerated growth of OneFood,” said Pedro Faria, BRF’s global CEO in a statement.
“If you ask which is the number-one halal food brand in the Middle East, the answer is Sadia. This is a fantastic asset that shows how close we are to consumers and just how confident they are in the quality and origin of our products. We’re talking about a relationship of over 40 years, given that the first container of Sadia products arrived in the region in the 1970s,” Faria added.
15,000 staff
Patricio Rohner, BRF general director in the Middle East and North Africa, will lead all of OneFood’s operations. He said the goal was to accelerate the transition process and forge closer relationships with consumers in all of the company’s markets.
OneFood has a workforce of 15,000 and will operate in more than 40 countries across the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and Asia.
