Kuwait Flour Mills, 1961: when the country began grinding its own wheat
Before independence, bread started with imported sacks. Pasta, biscuits, cooking oil and a network of automated bakeries followed.
Kuwait Flour Mills & Bakeries describes the time before it in one line: work used to begin wherever the flour shipments landed. Kuwait imported its flour ready-milled, and what the country baked depended on what the ships brought in.
After independence in 1961, the state founded Kuwait Flour Mills with a stated purpose of food security.
From flour to the shop shelf
The company did not stop at milling. Its own published record runs like this:
- 1969: a pasta factory.
- 1970: a biscuit factory.
- 1976: a vegetable oil plant, which the company says was the first of its kind in the Gulf.
- 1978: nine automated bakeries spread across the country, led by the central bakery in Subhan.
- 1988: a merger with Kuwait Bakeries, which produced today’s name.
- 1994: the purchase of Kuwait Supply Company, which hands out ration-card goods through its branches under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
- 1996: an animal feed plant for livestock farmers.
What the plan left behind
The Arabic bread delivered to co-ops every morning, the samoon rolls out of Subhan and the bag of flour on the shelf are all links in a chain that started in 1961. The company now lists five main factories and ten automated bakeries around the country.
The wheat itself is still imported; the company says it buys wheat, corn and oils from global harvests. What changed in 1961 was where the milling and baking happen: inside Kuwait.
Photo: Wheat grains in close-up, not from the Kuwaiti mills. By Thamizhpparithi Maari, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: Kuwait Flour Mills & Bakeries Co., About Us.
Kuwait One, once a week.
The most useful stories we published this week, in your inbox.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
