C o v e r S to ry
Across the last 10 years, we have been working in co-operation with Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) to develop the local suppliers.” Mohamed Shalaby, Mondelēz Bahrain Biscuits
Mondelēz Bahrain Biscuits Plant breaks Guinness World Record The Mondelēz Bahrain Biscuits plant scored a spot in the Guinness World Records, securing a title for the largest cream filled biscuit in the form of an Oreo. Made with the real dough and cream used in regular-sized Oreos, the record-breaking cookie weighed 73.5 kg with a diameter of 74 cm and a thickness of 15 cm. The enormous Oreo blitzed the previous record of 28.24 kg set by Hoppe Food Group & Midden Brabant College in The Netherlands back in 2011. Safa Hassan, quality specialist at the Mondelez Bahrain Biscuits plant, was the brainchild behind the idea. The process was not short of challenges and required a giant mould to be designed locally by the R&D and plant operations teams to begin with. After a couple of attempts, the team succeeded in producing a well baked and unbroken cookie. The official adjudicator from Guinness World Records carefully measured the weight of the biscuit as per the standards of the record guidelines and only then declared the new record. “We are extremely proud to have broken a Guinness World Records title for the largest cream-filled cookie at our newly established manufacturing plant in Bahrain,” remarks Mohamed Shalaby, plant director at Mondelez Bahrain Biscuits WLL. “I would like to congratulate the Bahrain Biscuits team for their determination to achieve this milestone; it was wonderful to see the team come together and join forces to make history, especially at such a momentous occasion with the official plant inauguration taking place.”
28 | Logistics News ME | June 2018
The new plant has already made a valuable contribution to the local economy and takes advantage of the region’s highly skilled and educated local workforce. The site creates about 150 direct jobs and helps sustain over 12,000 more indirect jobs in the local economy through its two plants. Shalaby points out: “Across the last 10 years, we have been working in co-operation with Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) to develop the local suppliers. We have great success stories from small and medium enterprises (SMEs), specially on the packaging front. All our packaging is manufactured locally. We worked very hard to develop the local suppliers on bulk materials as well. Our standards of supplier development is quite heavy, hence it requires a lot of time and efforts. We have around 350 suppliers in Bahrain, which also includes our service suppliers like hotels, and all our packaging suppliers as well.” Shalaby points out that the Middle East and Africa are priority markets for the company, and that “they are confident in selecting Bahrain as the preferred location for the plant, due to its business-friendly environment, skilled local workforce, and excellent transport links, all of which will be instrumental to the success of the growth plans”.
www.cbnme.com