Today's Edition
KHALED AL KHAWALDEH (ABU DHABI)
The UAE’s growingly diverse food industry was on full display at Dubai World Trade Centre on Wednesday as tens of thousands flocked to the city for the annual Gulfood exhibition this week.
The UAE has long sought to bolster its agriculture and food processing industries to bolster its own security, give consumers better choices and create new economic opportunities.
One of the more popular exhibits on display at the made it the Emirates stands at Gulfood on Wednesday was the Banna Brothers, a UAE based cured and dried meats supplier that was giving out spiced jerky.
Aside from the great taste, Khaled Mahmood, the companies CEO told Aletihad the products they produced were healthy, with low levels of sugars and cholesterol and high levels of protein.
“We are one of the first companies in the country working with dried meats, and for us it is important to be here in Dubai, in the UAE, showing people the quality of 100% Emirati made products,” he said.
Mahmood thanked Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development, which had sponsored most of the Emirati Entrepreneurs on display on Wednesday. He was joined by Mohammed Ali Al Mansoori, who’s company Nawader for Food Industries LLC, was working on a variety of low sugar alternatives made mostly from dates. This included crackers and biscuits as well as a bunch of date-based dips and jams.
“This conference brings together all of the experts and traders from around the world, so for us it’s a great opportunity to get our products to the foreign market,” Mansoori told Aletihad.
A recent report by US investment firm CBRE found that the UAE is aiming to triple its food production by 2030 to achieve several strategic economic and security goals. The report found that, in line with its 2051 Food Security Strategy, the country was investing big in the fields of food processing, agriculture and logistics to make the nation more self-sufficient and further diversify the economy.
Whilst, supporting smaller entrepreneurs is an important element of reaching these goals, larger scale investment is also required to reach the country’s food sector ambitions. Projects like the AGWA food Cluster are positioned to attract larger and more established players into the food market.
Russian-based Ecoculture has established a pilot program in the UAE to grow and sell its cherry tomatoes and other tomato variants locally within the UAE. They have plans to expand their reach in the UAE by expanding their greenhouse facilities – a move that Nikolay Sadkov, a Russian representative says will help the UAE reach its security goals and give consumers better tasting tomatoes.
“In the middle east there is a good culture like in Russia of fresh vegetable eating… so by producing these products locally we can bring down the time it takes to the store from one week to 24 hours,” Sadkov told Aletihad.
“This will improve the taste and make the tomato less watery but will also bring the cost down substantially.”
