Biscuit products from Mondelez

Food and beverage giant Mondelez recently commenced construction of its new $90-million biscuit plant at the Bahrain International Investment Park.

The ceremony was attended by Osama Mohammed Alarrayedh, Undersecretary for Industry Affairs at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, senior ministry officials and executives of Mondelez as well as officials from the project’s main contractor Mercury Mena.

The world-class manufacturing facility is designed and engineered as a multi-category plant that can handle large-scale production through technology-enabled and state-of-the-art components, in strict compliance with the specifications of Mondelez International manufacturing plants worldwide, said a statement from Mercury Mena.

Spread over 250,000 sq m, the factory will produce in its first phase six different biscuit categories with a capacity of 90,000 tonnes with the possibility to add more production lines in the future, the statement added. 

“The facility is one of our most ambitious plans on tap for this year, a landmark initiative that will significantly increase the manufacturing supply chain of Mondelēz International to address the rising demand for our popular products such as Oreo, Ritz, belVita, Prince and TUC across the Mena region,” said Dmitry Shachenok, project director of Mondelez Bahrain.

In a first for the region, the factory will be sourcing all its raw materials and supporting services from firms in its neighbourhood, revealed Shachenok.

It will create as many as 400 direct jobs and hundreds more of indirect jobs. The Bahrainisation rate will be around 35 per cent initially, he added.

Mercury Mena will be employing the Building Information Modelling (BIM) system in the construction of the factory, according to Ray Howard, project director at Mercury Mena.

“With the use of BIM technology, works for the factory have been constructed in the virtual environment first, prior to actual construction. It enables us to streamline the project delivery and reduce time on-site, ensuring prompt delivery of the project. It also allows us to coordinate all services and identify clashes early on giving us opportunity to rectify them immediately,” Howard added.

Mercury Mena operates a BIM level 2 (according to UK standards) environment adopted to reflect and satisfy Middle East needs and enhanced with augmented reality (AR) solutions, intelligent virtual tours, laser and GPR scanning, drone surveying and 3D reality capturing, virtual reality and many more cutting-edge technologies.