Radwa awarded ISO 9001 and HACCP

The ISO 9001:2000 award recognises the management systems that both create and control the products and services in an organisation and customer service in a company.

In a second acknowledgement of Radwa's commitment to healthy food production and its rigidly implemented Bio-Hazard and disease control systems, the company was awarded the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP ELOT 1413) certificate on the same day.

To add even more accolades to this impressive duo, Radwa holds ISO 14001:2004 that confirms the company's status as an eco-friendly producer.

"This is a tremendous achievement for us," said Tarek Taher, Chairman of the Al Taher Group of Companies that owns the farm. "We feel it recognises both our company's commitment to both efficiency of production, the health and welfare of our customers and the concern for the environment that underpins our way of approaching a very necessary food production facility."

He added that the award reflected the commitment and efforts of the staff and employees, "Without whose dedicated input, this simply would not have been possible."

The Radwa poultry farm has grown over the last 25 years in production capacity from three million to 28 million chickens per year. The farm now covers an area of 16 square kilometres and is amongst the largest in the Kingdom, accounting for about 10 percent of the country's annual production.

By using high quality feed and state of the art automated poultry houses, Radwa has achieved an enviable level of freedom from disease and biohazards associated with chicken production.
HACCP is a process control system designed to identify and prevent microbial and other hazards in food production and includes steps designed to prevent problems before they occur and to correct deviations systematically immediately they are detected.

Such preventive control systems with documentation and verification are widely recognized by scientific authorities and international organizations as the most effective approach available for producing safe food. Radwa poultry farms have therefore been acknowledged as among the world's safest and most efficient producers of poultry.

Achieving the HACCP certificate enables producers, processors, distributors and exporters of food products to utilize technical resources efficiently and in a cost effective manner in assuring food safety. Very importantly, from the consumer's point of view, buying products from a HACCP certified producer ensures his or her family's health and well being.

Al Taher said that the company's policy starts and ends with providing the best to consumers epitomized in its slogan: "Our Environment...Our Responsibility." The quality of the Rawda poultry farm has already gained international recognition. In 2003, it received the International Golden Star Award for Quality-Geneva and this year, the "Arch of Europe" Platinum for Quality in Frankfurt.

The award of the ISO 14001:2004 confirms that Radwa has proved its ability to reach and sustain an internationally recognised standard for the environmental management of businesses. ISO 14001:2004 prescribes controls for those activities that have an effect on the environment. These include the use of natural resources, handling and treatment of waste and energy consumption.

Implementing an Environmental Management System is a systematic way to discover and control the effects a company has on the environment. This is achieved by detecting ways to minimise waste and dispose of it more effectively and by learning how to use energy more efficiently. "Environmentally friendly ways of production and doing business have been core values," said Taher.

Poultry is a major source of protein in the Kingdom with the average person consumption is 48kg per annum. Hong Kong is still the world's biggest consumer of poultry at 57.3 kg/capita per annum, followed by the US at 49.6 kg/capita and Kuwait at 41.1 kg/capita.

With the recent concerns over Bird Flu and its knock on effects on public health and commercial production of farmed chickens, the Radwa farm exemplifies the seriousness with which control and elimination of the disease is taken in Saudi Arabia.