I was planning to go grocery shopping last weekend , so I went to the supermarket, grabbed a trolley, and began to venture. Moving from one aisle to another I browsed between racks which were piled with different items. Looking at some of the food products which I came across were Kellogg's corn flakes, Green Giant canned food, Philadelphia cream cheese, Activia diary products, and many other products seemed familiar. It was like if I were almost walking into a grocery store in Riyadh.
Also not far from where I live, just around the corner there's Uno Grill a famous restaurant for its menu, with almost the same dishes in their branch in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, TGIFriday's, Chili's and other famous fast food restaurant chains also available in Saudi Arabia. These are examples to show that the Saudi food market is open to foreign investment in different forms national and international trade either importing or through franchise.
The Saudi economy for the last decade has undergone major reforms.1 While witnessing an economic booming as a result of the increase of oil prices, and with the inflation that is affecting the global economy not to mention the overall increase of prices affecting the majority of consumers, the Saudi Riyal is pegged to U.S. Dollar at fixed exchange rate at $1 = 3.75 Riyals. This could be one of the reasons that wasn't exacerbated and kept steady yet growing annual demands.
Other means that have certainly aided in expanding the consumer base is the changing life style, the fast moving pace of our activities, the trend of moving to live in big metropolitan and urban cities migrating from rural areas. These factors played a major a role in altering our eating habits, although the awareness of the consumer created a flourishing market , and investors had to respond accordingly by supplying the need for the consumers constantly.
Bander Al-Aseeri
The interest in the Saudi food market is driven by a number of reasons. That's why it got the attention and attracted foreign investors who definitely saw the promising opportunities and sought to invest in this market. That was seen through The new encouraging regulations by the government on food trade and the reduction of taxes. However, the main reasons could be, first, the Saudi population is growing at 3% per year, which means demand will grow proportionately in addition huge supermarkets and malls that have food courts are being newly constructed. Second, the Saudi market imports $8 billion U.S. worth of food and beverages every year.2 Finally, the Saudi market is the biggest importer of food with a 66% of the annual Middle East imports. all the Middle East’s annual imports. 3
the Saudi food market posses huge investing potentials that is constantly growing. While the Saudi economy is not the biggest in Asia, It is considered one of the largest consuming market in the continent and the biggest in the middle east. The rate of consumption reaches it's peak during the pilgrimage (Hajj) season. These elements does show opportunities for a rising future of the Saudi food industry and the midst of the economic booming existing now that could definitely make it one of the growing markets in the world.
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