Attracting major interest at the ongoing Halal World Expo in Abu Dhabi was the Al Semman Farm which produces the unique Al Ain Quail.

The company had to disappoint distributors in the Middle East and Europe who were keen to immediately start importing the quail, which are 100 per cent natural, halal, and twice the size of normal birds.

Huge UAE demand for the quail produced in Al Ain through a selective breeding process means consumers in other Gulf countries may have to wait at least 18 months before they can buy the halal delicacy at their local supermarkets.

Just six months after launching its products into the UAE market, Al Semman Farm is producing 15,000 quail per week, but says it will have to increase production by more than three times to satisfy customer demand in the Emirates alone.

“They approached us on the opening day of the exhibition, and while we plan to start exporting our products to other parts of the Middle East in the near future, this is on hold for now because we don’t have the capacity to meet the demand,” said James Greig, Manager of Al Semman Farm.

“The response from the UAE market since we introduced our products here six months ago has been huge. We now want to increase production to 50,000 per week, and we’re putting in additional bird producing units in January 2009.  We expect to reach 200,000 quail per month by end of 2009.”

“That will only just meet requirements in the UAE, never mind the rest of the Gulf,” added Greig, who is nevertheless using Halal World Expo as a platform to increase product awareness among the strong gathering of halal distributors and suppliers.

Al Semman Farm is part of the UAE-based Liberty Investment Company, whose chairman, Sheikh Khalid Bin Abdul Aziz Al Qasimi, has insisted that UAE customer demand must be met first, before the company begins exporting its products.

The farm was established in 2007 but only went into production in July 2008 following 18 months of research to perfect its unique breeding process.

While the precise nature of the process is a strictly guarded trade secret, the company is using Halal World Expo to reveal some of the reasons why it can produce quail between 180g and 250g in size, compared with the international norm of between 110g and 140g.

“We achieve this through selective breeding, and by using 100 per cent natural feed,” explained Greig.  “We don’t use any antibiotics or growth enhancers.  We can’t call the quail organic, because the feed is not organically produced, but it uses 100 per cent natural elements and there are no artificial additives.  We’re the only company in the region that does it this way.”

The farm, which largely supplies supermarkets in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Al Ain, also produces up to 16,000 quail eggs per month.-TradeArabia News Service