Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — The Saudi Grains Organization (SAGO) stated that Saudi Arabia’s total production of flour reached 27 million tons.

SAGO made this clarification on Saturday, refuting a statement regarding erroneous data being circulated about the Kingdom’s total flour production following a statement of the CEO of the First Milling Company (MC-1).

There are four milling companies in the Kingdom that produce a total of 60 million bags of flour, SAGO said.

“The data being circulated about the statement of the CEO of the MC-1 only relate to the data related to that company. The storage capacities of the four milling companies in the Kingdom amount to about 745,000 tons of wheat, while the operational capacity of wheat milling is 151500 tons per day,” the statement pointed out.

The flour-milling sector is one of the targeted sectors for privatization under the Saudi Vision 2030 realization programs. MC-1 is the largest of the four milling companies and is part of SAGO’s privatization plan of Saudi flour mills and grain silos.

The company was previously owned by the Public Investment Fund. Al-Raha Al-Safi Food Company acquired MC-1 for $540 million earlier last year. The deal was facilitated by the National Center for Privatization and SAGO.