Miller Magazine Issue: 128 August 2020

35 NEWS MILLER / August 2020 MY2019/20 (July 2019/June 2020), Saudi Arabia impor- ted 3.45 million MT of wheat worth $809.17 million via tenders issued by SAGO. It is not clear if any SAGO owned silos were included in the privatization. SAGO has silos collocated with flour mills in 13 cities with a combined storage capacity of 3,230,000 MT. A small amount of storage was expected to be privatized with the mills. Detailed information on the two wheat milling groups sold is below: First Mills Company: Headquartered in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, the First Mills Company has flour mills in western, central, northern and eastern Saudi Arabia. The company was sold for $540,533,333 to the Raha Al-Safi consortium led by the Saudi company Al-Mutlaq Group. The consortium includes another two Saudi firms – Al-Safi and Abunayyan Holding - and the UAE company Essa Al Ghurair Investment. The First Mills Company has 4,200 MT of wheat milling and 900 MT of feed processing ca- pacity per day. Third Mills Company: Headquartered in the southern city of Khamis Mushait, the Third Mills Company was sold for $200,000,145. The buying consortium is made up by Al-Rajhi, a Saudi company, and two UAE companies - Al Ghurair Foods and Masafi. The company has flourmills in southern, western and northern Saudi Arabia. The Third Mills Company has 3,451 MT of wheat milling and 1,400 MT of animal feed processing capacity per day. Saudi Arabia consumes more than 2.7 million tons of wheat flour and its derivatives annually, according to esti- mates by SAGO. The Makkah region tops in demand for flour with 28 percent of the total, followed by Riyadh with 24 percent. Wheat is mostly consumed in the form of flat (pita) bread or local hamburger buns known as ‘Samoli’ and other western-style bread, such as French baguettes and pizza. The average per capita consumption of wheat in Saudi Arabia is currently estimated at 40 kg annually. White flour constitutes the bulk of wheat flour consumed in Saudi Arabia. In recent years, however, there has been a small but growing demand for whole wheat flour due to its perceived health benefits. It should be noted that Saudi Arabia has one of the highest diabetic and obesity rates in the world. SAGO has increased its whole wheat production in recent years to meet the growing demand.