UAE based food producer National Food Product Company (NFPC) has begun construction of a new food manufacturing facility in Kizad.
NFPC is considered as one of the largest food producers in the UAE and owns brands such as Oasis, Blu, Milco, Lacnor and Gulf & Safa.
The 752,000m2 production facility is expected to become operational in the first quarter of 2018.
The food facility will manufacture most of NFPC brands.
The facility will be constructed in Kizad's food industry region where several other regional and global food industry players have set up businesses.
The company said that the factory will feature state-of-the-art technological solutions similar to the globally renowned water, juice and dairy facilities.
The manufacturing facility will also be one of the first fully automated facilities in the world, the company claims.
Abu Dhabi Ports CEO Captain Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi said: "By hosting NFPC as our anchor tenant, Kizad's food cluster will significantly contribute towards the efforts to meet the growing food demand in the GCC, especially in the UAE.
"NFPC's ambitious expansion plans are timely as the food consumption in the GCC is expected to grow at a 3.5 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2014 and 2019 to reach 51.9 million metric tonnes (MT).
"Kizad's food cluster along with Khalifa Port's multimodal connectivity is fully equipped to support the UAE's efforts to increase food production to meet this growing demand."
The first phase of the facility development will include energy and water efficiency features which include a 5-gallon water bottling plant, MILCO dairy, LACNOR juice, and OASIS small water bottling plant, all under one roof.
The 120,000m2 MILCO/LACNOR/OASIS plant will be a sustainable building using solar panels for hot water and thermal energy generation.
The phase one development will also include the construction of waste water treatment plant, 10,000m2 office building, a 2800m2 central district cooling plant with a total capacity of 18,000 tons of refrigeration, along with plot-wide infrastructure and road network.
The second phase of the project, which has a total built-up area of 150,000m2 will house a fully automated packaging facility to manufacture containers for food industry, a recycling plant to manufacture products using waste materials, and an automated cold store with 150,000 ton capacity to cater to Khalifa Port customers and other adjacent buildings.
