JEDDAH, 3 February 2006 — The Saudi Dairy & Foodstuff Co. (SADAFCO) has said that it does not have any connection with Denmark.
“We terminated all our connections with our original Danish co-founders in 1987,” a senior executive of the company said on Wednesday night.
“Recently, it has come to our notice that links are still being made between SADAFCO and Denmark. This is erroneous,” Khaled Alkhulaidi, national sales manager of the company, told a press conference at Jeddah Hilton.
Alkhulaidi and two other senior executives of the company — Central Region Executive Manager Mussad Al-Nassar and Public Relations Manager Talal Mohammed Al-Nounou — strongly condemned on behalf of the Saudi joint stock company’s management and staff the blasphemous cartoons first published in Denmark in September and then reprinted in other dailies.
“All of SADAFCO’s products are manufactured in the Kingdom to the highest standards and continue to be consumed by millions of consumers in the Middle East-Gulf region,” Alkhulaidi said.
“We’re a 100 percent Saudi company and have in employment 600 Saudis,” he said, adding the company has emerged as one among the top in the private sector with the highest percentage of Saudi employment,” Nassar said. “The ongoing campaign to boycott Danish products has not affected our sales at all. If there has been any fluctuation in our sales, it’s due to seasonal factors,” he said and emphasized that the company fully supported the ongoing campaign against Danish products.
The company was established in 1976 with its capital shared by 48 percent Saudis, 48 percent Kuwaitis and four percent Danish. “After a few years, we first acquired the Danish stake and likewise took the Kuwaiti stake and have remained 100 percent Saudi company since 1987,” Nassar said.
The company had been importing less than one percent of its ingredients from Denmark. “But even that we discontinued the moment the blasphemous cartoons came to light. We have since been importing those ingredients from New Zealand and Australia,” Nassar added.
The company has developed an extensive and diverse product portfolio of strong brand names both in the milk and non-milk food categories in the Middle East and North Africa. It exports its range of dairy, cooking and soft drink products to a dozen countries in the region.
The Jeddah-based SADAFCO, with Ahmed M.H. Al-Marzouki as its vice chairman, owns two fully equipped automated factories in the Kingdom — in Jeddah and Dammam, and two others in Egypt.
