Business & Money | Wednesday 25 February, 2015 1:54 am |

“Rainbow Milk” has a long history in GCC region especially in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and shares a close relationship with many generations in the kingdom.
Today “Rainbow Milk” is proud of its journey and has become a part of consumers’ lives for generations.
But not many people know where it comes from or manufacture!

FrieslandCampina a European company with extensive global reach and experience, it has been a key player in GCC region in the dairy industry since 1955, offers Western Europe high quality milk manufactured, produced and packed locally in a factory based in Jeddah – KSA.

FrieslandCampina is a dairy cooperative with more than 19,000 member farmers; the company capitalizes on this and delivers high quality dairy products with its unique ‘grass to glass’ business model. The model is anchored on the ability to have full control of the whole chain: from the farms (grass) to the final product (glass) which not many multinational companies have. With more than 120 years of knowledge on farming, food production, food safety, health and nutrition FrieslandCampina managed to gain consumers’ trust and be part of their daily life in this region.

“Rainbow Milk” factory in Jeddah now is at 38% in terms of the extent of Saudization, which puts the organization into the platinum category as per the labor laws of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The factory has started also to employ women as part of the workforce in the organization, which is a positive step towards work force diversification in the organization which will defiantly lead to better performance.

On the sustainability front, the factory has successfully managed to reduce electricity consumption compared to 2013 by 25%, and even managed to reduce water consumption compared to 2013 by 30%. The company is always involved in efforts towards upgrading the factory with machinery and equipment, modernizing the factory is an ongoing process. Recently FrieslandCampina has acquired the ISO 14000 certificate.

The factory produce Ready-to-Drink rainbow product range, including “FRESHY” the newly launched dairy drink that won Middle East’s Beverage Award in Dairy Drink category at the Arab - Asian Alliance Awards (AABA). The organization’s production scope covers most of the GCC. The factory operates under the supervision of the mother company which is based in The Netherlands, following the European Standards of production and manufacture.

The company aims to promote the “Saudisation” of the workforce by incrementing the number of Saudi Arabian employees. In addition, the company is also pivoted towards gender equality, and welcomes a higher number of women to join its workforce through the proactive involvement of the Human Resources Team. The HR Director of the company, Eng. Sami Abukhashaba, says, “The GCC dairy market is growing rapidly it is one of the fast growing markets in the world, Saudi Arabia considered being the biggest dairy consumer among GCC states. Still we have lots of opportunities to further our position and the market as a whole.
That can only happen with the most important asset a company has which is people, we believe diversity is very important in the work culture. We understand that the local community’s involvement localizes a global product, and also offers plenty of opportunity and exposure for their participation and advancement. FrieslandCampina is an equal opportunities employer and that philosophy is what we are angling at in order to fulfil our promise to deliver high quality products and stay close to consumers’ hearts.”