Miller Magazine Issue: 120 December 2019

68 INTERVIEW MILLER / DECEMBER 2019 Our products vary depending on the country. We produce for instance flour for Iraqi bread (Samoon), flour for the Arabic bread and premium flour for bakery and pastry uses. We also have suitable flour for biscuits and the healthy gluten-free maize flour, in addition to producing semolina, pasta flour, noodles flour and pizza flour. Our products are sold under different brand names again depending on the country and the producing mill, some of our brands: Al-Jamal, Al-Tahuna, Al-Asfar, El-Moatamayez, Al- Shams. Our brands for pasta and noodles are: Pasta mama and Noodi. Where do you import wheat for flour? Al-Hazaa Investment Group has a policy for importing wheat, which is to import from big well-known suppliers such as Car- gill, Louis Dreyfus, Bunge, CHS, etc. The wheat comes from different origins, depending on the wheat quality and price, these origins include: Australia, Canada, USA and the Black Sea region. Where do you export your products? Our main markets are the Middle Eastern markets. We ex- port to countries like Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Angola and Djibouti. What are major challenges you face today? Some of the major challenges that we face in today’s world are the fluctuating wheat prices, the strong competition led by big flour exporters especially the Turkish exporters and the un- stable political situation in the region. You have a dynamic, visionary investment perspective. Could you tell about your investments and future projects in milling industry? Our focus in the future will be on the Iraqi market in order to follow up with the expected changes in the flour market there. It is expected that the bread subsidies will be removed in Iraq which will free the market. What are your future targets in your operating market? To constantly improve our business and mills and provide continuous technical support for our employees to reach our goal in satisfying our customers’ needs and provide them with high quality products at competitive prices. Moreover, it is also important for us to properly prepare the third-generation mem- bers to be ready to join the family group and add their distinctive touch. EGYPT IS ONE OF THE PROMISING MARKETS Could you tell us flour consumption patterns in the Egypt? Is there any change in the eating habits in recent years? The Egyptian market is a large market for wheat flour. It has a high demand for flour which is increasing annually and in a continuous manner. Egypt is one of the big importers of wheat in the world. Therefore, Al-Hazaa Investment Group took this opportunity to build one of its largest milling facilities in Egypt, Al-Taj Mll 1, which was built in 2005, then the Group expand- ed this facility in 2019 and increased its production capacity to reach 1280 MT/ day through building a second mill, Al-Taj Mill 2. Al-Taj Mill 1 and Al-Taj Mill 2 were, as with all of our other mills, fully installed with the latest Bühler machines. Our mills are fully automatic, from the first step of receiving the grain until producing the final product. Furthermore, the government in Egypt is planning to de- crease its subsidy on bread, it is expected that the demand on the unsubsidized bread, that is produced using the private sector’s flour, will increase, which will open new opportunities for private flour mills in Egypt. Despite the big competition in the Egyptian market, it is one of the promising markets. RELY ON SOLAR ENERGY IN ITS MILLING FACILITIES Is there anything you want to add and share our readers? It is of a great importance for our group to contribute to our society while protecting the environment. With this big number of mills that we operate, we wanted to create sustainable busi- ness with clean, eco-friendly environment, so we decided to build a solar energy power plant in Jordan to provide our mills in the country with the needed clean energy supply without dis- turbing the environment. We have finished the power plant in 2019 with a capacity of 21 mw, to become the first investment group that fully rely on solar energy in its milling facilities. Moreover, we own storage silos with a total storage capacity of 450,000 ton distributed among our mills, which helps us to store a significant amount of grains at all time. We at Al-Hazaa In- vestment Group are very proud of our portfolio and the achieve- ments we made in the industry. But the journey is still at its begin- ning and we look forward to a better future, more is yet to come!