First crushing soybean
factory in Selaata

To provide poultry feed

Societe Huiles et Derives (SHD) will reopen a factory for crushing soybeans and refining oil in Selaata. Operations in the factory will start in late August.

Maurice Bouri, General Manager, said: “It is the first and sole factory for crushing soy beans and sunflowers in the market.” The plant will provide fresh soy beans as poultry feed to companies such as Hawa Chicken, Tanmia, and Shuman.

The 110,000 square meter factory was built in the 1970s and stopped operating in 2007. The company allocated around $20 million to restore and rehabilitate it. Bouri said that building the factory from scratch would have cost $80 million.

Production capacity is 1,000 tons of crushed soy beans (equivalent to 800 tons of soy meal) and 350 tons of soy bean oil per day. Bouri said that the factory can produce 600 tons of sunflower meal per day as cattle feed, as well as 150 tons of oil, daily. “We don’t aim to produce sunflower meal in the first stage, as the demand for cattle feed is still shy,” he said.

The company provides soy bean oil in bulk to factories, restaurants, and others.

SHD aims to export around 50 percent of its soy meal and oil production to the MENA region.

The company is equally owned by the Doumit and Bouri families.