JEDDAH, 28 February 2008 — Saudi authorities have decided to streamline supply of flour after they found that the recent shortage was caused by the use of flour as cattle feed, an increased demand from food industries and exports to neighboring countries.
In a statement issued yesterday, the General Organization for Grain Silos & Flourmills (GOGSF) urged distributors to inform the organization the names of bakeries and food factories they have been catering to, along with their commercial registrations, addresses and phone numbers.
“When we conducted a study on the sudden shortage of flour, we found that it was because of the use of flour to feed cattle following an increase in prices of barley and other feeds compared to the price of subsidized flour,” the statement said.
The organization said it had also observed an increase in the number of food factories that depend mainly on flour. It also noticed subsidized flour being smuggled to other countries. “All these resulted in bakeries not receiving sufficient quantities of flour,” it added.
The organization’s board met in Riyadh last week under the chairmanship of Agriculture Minister Dr. Fahd Balghunaim and adopted measures to ensure adequate supply of flour in the future.
GOGSF’s branch in Riyadh has called 70 distributors and other clients to provide it with latest data of bakeries and food industries they cater to. “We’ll apply the same system in all other regions,” the organization said.
GOGSF said flourmills in the Kingdom have been working around the clock for the past few years, producing more than 150,000 bags of flour daily to meet the needs of the country’s 27 million population, including expatriates.
A flour crisis hit the Kingdom for the first time earlier this month with packets of the popular shami and somouli breads disappearing from many bakeries, groceries and supermarkets. The short supply led to price increases across the country.
Balghunaim announced recently that four new flourmills would supply an additional 16 million bags of flour weighing 45 kg each annually, bringing the total supply to 70 million bags.
Balghunaim said two new flourmills in Madinah would supply 24,000 bags of flour daily starting early next month. “They will meet the increasing requirements in Makkah, Madinah, Hail and surrounding villages,” he added.
He said two new flourmills in Al-Jouf and Riyadh would supply 24,000 bags of flour daily in August. “Total output of the four mills will reach 48,000 bags daily and 16 million bags annually,” he added.
Balghunaim said his ministry was now coordinating with the Makkah governorate in order to establish new silos and flourmills in the region with a daily capacity of 600 tons of wheat. “New mills will also be set up in the Southern Region,” he added.
The flourmills in Madinah and Hail were built at a total cost of SR400 million, he said, adding that the new mills in Riyadh and Al-Jouf would cost SR120 million and SR126 million respectively.
“The GOGSF’s board has decided to establish a new mill in Wadi Al-Dawasser as there is a large grain silos with a capacity of 500,000 tons of wheat. It will supply 12,000 bags of flour daily,” the organization said, adding that it would be ready by the beginning of next fiscal year.
