Sunday, 01 October 2006

JEDDAH: The Radwa poultry farm, some 50 km north of Jeddah, last week, received international acknowledgement of its quality management processes. The ISO 9001-2000 award recognizes the management systems that both create and control the products and services in an organization and customer service in a company.

In a second acknowledgement of Radwa's commitment to healthy food production and its rigidly implemented Bio-hazard and disease control systems, the company was awarded the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP ELOT 1413) certificate on the same day.

Radwa holds ISO 14001:2004 that confirms the company's status as an eco-friendly producer.

"This is a tremendous achievement for us," said Tarek Taher, chairman of the Al-Taher Group of Companies that owns the farm. "We feel it recognizes our company's commitment to efficiency of production, health and welfare of our customers and concern for the environment that underpins our way of approaching a very necessary food production facility."

He added that award reflected the commitment and efforts of the staff and employees, "Without whose dedicated input, this simply would not have been possible."

The Radwa poultry farm has grown over the last 25 years in production capacity from three million to 28 million chickens per year. The farm now covers an area of 16 square km and is amongst the largest in the Kingdom, accounting for about 10 percent of the country's annual production.

HACCP is a process control system designed to identify and prevent microbial and other hazards in food production and includes steps designed to prevent problems before they occur and to correct deviations systematically immediately they are detected. 

Al-Taher said the quality of the Rawda poultry farm has already gained international recognition. In 2003, it received the International Golden Star Award for Quality-Geneva and this year, the "Arch of Europe" Platinum for Quality in Frankfurt.

The award of the ISO 14001:2004 confirms that Radwa has proved its ability to reach and sustain an internationally recognized standard for the environmental management of businesses. ISO 14001:2004 prescribes controls for those activities that have an effect on the environment. These include the use of natural resources, handling and treatment of waste and energy consumption.

Poultry is a major source of protein in the Kingdom with the average person consumption is 48kg per annum.

© The Saudi Gazette 2006