MOROCCO – Flour Miller Forafric Maroc, a subsidiary of the industrial group Forafric Global Plc, has announced plans to expand its wheat crushing capacity through a 10-year renewable contract to lease and operate an existing milling facility in the Meknes-Fes region of Morocco.
At 470 tonnes of soft wheat and 130 tonnes of durum, the lease is expected to increase Forafric’s total milling capacity by approximately 600 tonnes per day.
The announcement was made in a press release published on the company’s website on Monday, May 6, 2024.
According to the press release details, this transaction is subject to regulatory approval and the unnamed partner plans to transfer its factory operations to Forafric during the third quarter of 2024.
“This contract will allow us to quickly expand our operational footprint and crushing capacity with low capital investment. The choice of this facility was motivated by its location and state-of-the-art equipment,” said Saad Bendidi, president of Forafric.
Founded in 1926, Forafric is an industrial group specialized in the milling industry with a complete range of flour and semolina, and secondary processing products such as pasta and couscous.
With 12 industrial units and two logistics platforms, Forafric is the largest milling company in Morocco and exports its products to more than 45 countries.
In recent years, the company has intensified its investments through the acquisition, rental or construction of new facilities to strengthen its presence in the market.
In July 2023, the giant miller purchased 90% of the share capital and voting rights of the Société Industrielle de Minoterie du Sud (SIMS).
According to Forafric, the move should enable it to obtain SIMS’s factory, a public limited company based in Marrakech which has a daily crushing capacity of 300 tonnes of common wheat and a storage capacity of 15,000 tonnes of cereals.
The company also expanded its presence in Mali after acquiring a majority stake in Malian cereal processing company Groupe Sahel in November 2022, in a bid to expand in West Africa while strengthening Groupe Sahel’s production capacity and diversifying its product offering.
Groupe Sahel has a production capacity of 600 tonnes per day and is famously known for its Lafia brand.
The company has also injected nearly US$100 million to expand the grinding capacities of three of its mills and the construction of three new mills scheduled to come into service in 2025.
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