Oman Flour Mills Co. (OFM) has ambitious plans to diversify its business activities into a number of bakery, poultry, and milling related areas. As a part of the growth plan, OFM is planning to set up a fully automated industrial bakery. The bakery will manufacture and market packaged bakery products such as breads, buns, rolls and Arabic bread, and is expected to start commercial production by end of 2009. This is a part of the company’s strategy to diversify income mix and provide more high quality products and services for the local market. Last year, the company has also established a subsidiary firm 'Bread House LLC’ that distributes high quality frozen bakery products and is opening kiosks and bakery cafes to market them.
As the demand for OFM’s range of products grows, and a technical and financial study has proved the potential, a new major flour mill at the Port of Sohar is currently under development. The proposed 300 metrics tons-per-day-capacity flour mill will help further boost OFM’s current market share of 65 per cent. Adjacent to the mill, OFM is planning to erect 200,000 mts of Grain Storage Silo where grain will be unloaded with specialized unloading equipments at the rate of 15,000 metric tons per day. Additionally, a poultry project near the Oman/UAE border is under progress as the company has announced the signing of a preliminary Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the IFFCO Group of the United Arab Emirates.
OFM’s Muscat-based flour milling operation itself has grown considerably since the company’s establishment in 1977. A succession of expansions has boosted flour milling capacity from 150 tons per day to around 800 tons per day at present. The company also operates a substantial grain storage facility of 120,000 tons, as well as a ship unloading facility of a capacity of 500 tons per hour, at Port Sultan Qaboos.
