A’Saffa: Committed to delivering superior quality products
MUSCAT: A’Saffa Foods, Oman’s largest fully integrated poultry project leaves no stone unturned in its commitment to delivering superior quality products that are 100% natural, fresh and tasty.
Focusing on the corporate philosophy – ‘Core values of Healthy Food, Health and Happiness’, A’Saffa’s success is based on its ‘100% promise’ and its three pillars – ‘ 100% halal, 100% natural and 100% tasty’. Each and every A’Saffa product is hence produced, packaged and transported to a wholesaler or retailer keeping health, freshness and safety in mind. Having built its core competence and expertise in fully integrated poultry and food production, food processing and innovative food recipes, the brand is thus known for delivering fresh, flavourful, halal, and healthy choices for its consumers in Oman and beyond.
Sidhartha Lenka, head of Sales and Marketing at A’Saffa Foods averred, “A consumer must take into consideration that imported chicken, takes more than a month to reach the GCC, and cannot be considered fresh. A completely home-grown Omani brand - A’Saffa chicken – on the other hand, comes fresh daily from the farms to reach your nearest shopping outlet, hence ensuring that our end-consumers obtain the freshest and tastiest product possible.”
He elaborated, “Through A’Saffa’s ‘ real halal’ methods, a bird’s slaughtering is done by hand from the top of the neck ensuring each drop of blood and toxin flows out of the bird, making it hygienic for consumption. Most companies use mechanical devices to slaughter poultry, which is contrary to the strict guidelines that should be carried out to ensure that birds are slaughtered in accordance with proper Islamic Sharia. 3 to 4 out of every 100 chicken die before slaughtering when electrical shocks are given to the birds (stunning), and this goes unnoticed in mechanical slaughtering which means ‘ ha- lal’ is not guaranteed. At A’Saffa, we ensure that all our birds are slaughtered by hand using a knife, and processed in a way that is hygienic and ensures that the birds are of the highest quality and fit for human consumption.”
It is also noteworthy that A’Saffa Foods specially employ trained Muslim staff to slaughter chickens by hand at their farm ensuring that the staff member says ‘Bismillah Allah ho Akhbar’ whilst facing ‘Makkah’ during the slaughtering of each individual bird in accordance with Sharia principles. Customers in Oman and across the GCC can thus be rest assured that they can buy every A’Saffa chicken and chicken product with the confidence that they have been raised and slaughtered by hand using real halal techniques in accordance with Islamic Sharia.
Known for producing Oman’s freshest chicken and allied products, A’Saffa Foods also has a highly trained on-site medical team and experienced scientists at their farms, who monitor the health of the chickens daily to ensure that they are kept free from disease, have the right balance of feed and water; thus ensuring that the final product that is delivered to the consumer is healthy, natural and pure.
Located in Thumrait (Oman), the A’Saffa Foods plant produces high-quality fresh and frozen poultry products. One of the reasons for the remote desert location of the plant in the Dhofar Governorate is to ensure that the most stringent ‘biosecurity’ measures are in place at the facility. Placing the farms far away from human habitation, migra- tory bird routes and other developments enables the company to minimise any potential risk of contamination or disease that could impact the farms that are located across a 40 sq.km site.
The infrastructure at A’Saffa Foods plant includes parent farms, feed mill, environmentally controlled sheds (EC Shed), hatchery, halal certified slaughterhouse, modern (fully automated, untouched by hand) processing plant, R&D centre, disease diagnostics and feed analytical labs. A’Saffa birds are fed with 100% natural ingredients that are also manufactured at the A’Saffa Feed mill, all throughout the raising period to ensure that the chickens are healthy and as close to organic as possible.
As a company that adheres to religious, healthy and ethical practices - A’Saffa prohibits the use of chicken waste by-products and recycled animal waste feed substitutes for feeding its birds. Meticulous attention to detail, high biosecurity standards and stringent quality control checks at their plant ensure that the chicken that reaches end-consumers are fresh, natural, halal, healthy, tasty and safe.
That is not all, customers who buy A’Saffa products – frozen or fresh – can also be assured that during the production process, no hormones, no steroids, no preservatives, no colours and no flavours of any kind are added to the products. In addition, no injection of water is given to the birds to artificially increase their weight, thereby ensuring that A’Saffa’s chicken and allied products are both healthy and tasty.