Qalaa: Dina Farms Retail Outlets Eyes 12 Stores Nationwide at 2014-end

Dina Farms, Egypt’s largest private farm, is in the process of a successful rollout of its retail outlets with a target of reaching twelve stores by year’s end, the African leader in infrastructure and industry Qalaa Holdings announced Monday.
Qalaa Holdings (CCAP.CA) , formerly Citadel Capital, announced that the Arab Company for Services and Trade, which is a sister company of Dina Farms, a portfolio company of its agrifoods subsidiary Gozour, is moving ahead with an ambitious expansion plan that will see the company launch additional retail outlets. Dina Farms currently has a total of eight stores nationwide with a monthly turnover of EGP 12 million.

“The retail arm of Dina Farms was initially focused on providing the market with fresh products sourced from the farm including premium quality diary, meat and produce,” said Amr El-Garhy, Managing Director and Head of Qalaa Holdings Agrifoods Division. “To capitalize on the potential of the Egyptian retail market we have initiated a management re-shuffle bringing in industry veteran George Fouad, who has more than 16 years of industry experience.”

“Fouad will spearhead the rollout of Dina Farms retail establishments and help set a new growth strategy for the business that will see our retail concept evolve towards larger supermarkets that stock a wide variety of goods in addition to Dina Farms branded products,” said El-Garhy.

“June is the first month where we have turned a corner. The firm has turned profits on the back of higher sales density and cost cutting,” he added.

By building efficient relationships with suppliers and implementing a centralized retail system Dina Farms was able to grow from only two outlets with revenue of EGP 35 million when Qalaa Holdings first acquired the company in 2007 to 8 outlets today, with the newest store added last month. The company has signed the contract for 2 new stores and plans to add 2 additional outlets before year’s end to reach a total of 12 stores.

“Large supermarkets currently represent less than 10% of the entire retail sphere, which is why we decided to address this underserved market with larger outlets that are approximately 500 square meters in size offering customers a larger selection of products and the opportunity to complete their shopping in one venue,” said George Fouad, General Manager of Dina Farms’ Retail company.

In addition to unparalleled access to Dina Farms products, the new Dina Farms supermarkets will be the only supermarket chain in the country to carry Dina Farms meat, which is sourced from the company’s own cattle farm and is unavailable at other retailers. Dina Farms’ total herd size has now reached 15,000 heads of cattle, including 9,000 milking cows.

Dina Farms is Egypt’s largest dairy producer and a key supplier of fresh produce to local markets. In addition to its own highly successful, premium brand of fresh pasteurized milk products, which today lead the market with a 67% market share, the company is also the largest supplier of raw milk to leading local producers of processed dairy products.

Agrifoods is one of Qalaa Holdings’ (formally Citadel Capital) core industries along with energy, cement, transportation & logistics and mining.