Al Rawabi Dairy Company, a leading UAE-based dairy, has expanded its cold storage infrastructure with the opening of a Dh25 million ($6.8 million) facility that can store 4,000 pallets - equivalent to 180,000 crates in a temperature controlled environment.

The move comes as Al Rawabi bolsters internal capacity to accommodate rising demand for its products, with its company’s sales having grown 15 per cent in the first quarter of the year, said a statement.

The dairy’s growth has resulted in it becoming the number one brand in the UAE in terms of market share in juices, with 14 different flavours on offer.  It holds one-third market share of the UAE market for dairy products, it said.

The facility has also introduced state-of-the-art design and technological improvements, with a new ramp eliminating bottlenecks, and automatic packaging and labelling machines delivering efficiency gains.

The new loading area technologies improve the loading processes while reducing instances of transport related damage to zero.

The increased space for night loading operations reduces loading times by four to six minutes per vehicle, generating substantial productivity increases.

Dr Ahmed Eltigani, general manager, said: “We are very proud of Al Rawabi’s journey towards becoming the UAE’s leading locally-based dairy. A project that started in 1989 with a mere 500 cows has turned into a state of the art facility producing 275,000 litres of dairy products a day as well as 150,000 litres of fresh juice.

“Al Rawabi is committed to expanding its operations and introducing world-class facilities to continue providing consumers across the region fresh, high quality products. Our new cold storage facility offers engineering, design and technology improvements to create efficiency and cost savings while helping us streamline our value chain and become a premier regional brand.”

The new facility benefits from stringent temperature control that maintains operating temperature uniformly across all areas, including storage and transport corridors. State of the art waste management reduces landfill loads, said the statement.

It is scalable, and can accommodate a further five loading stations in the future, it said.

“Al Rawabi has recently completed 25 years of operation, during which it has established a reputation as the UAE’s leading provider of dairy products. We are investing heavily in strengthening internal capacities and creating new assets and infrastructure including farmland, machines and stores to continue meeting sharp demand increases for our superb quality products,” Dr Eltigani added. - TradeArabia News Service