Engro Foods Canada Ltd. Makers of Al Safa Halal packaged foods celebrated its one year anniversary with a luncheon at the Delta Meadowvale hotel on July 18th, 2012. Attending the event were MP Brad Butt, Senator Salma Ataullahjan, COO and Co-Founder Engro Foods Steve Hahn.It’s the first Pakistan-based multi-national company to invest millions to set up a facility in this country, creating Canadian jobs directly and indirectly.
Salman Khan, the brand ambassador addressed in his speech “we don’t want to be seen as having halal meet only but other items like rice, flour etc. A year ago we realized that that old packaging was outdated and not up to line. We did a thorough study and came up with the new packaging, bold and attractive”. Initially Al Safa had 44 SKUs and now we will have 93 SKUs in 2012 with 8 different categories.
The first Pakistani-Canadian female senator Salma Ataullahjan in Mississauga also spoke of the huge halal consumer market in Canada. The Muslim population is 1 million, which is 2.8% of the total population in Canada, the largest non-Christian group. She says “50% of this population is now born in Canada and contributes to businesses likeAl Safa. It is also a huge market for university students who have difficulty finding halal foods outside”.
After that Steve in his speech told us more about the company. He says “ Al Safa was founded in 1999 with a simple idea of making authentic halal food conveniently available to Muslim families. Both our product line and customers expanded; hence the idea was catching on. In 2011 Engro Foods acquired Al Safa , making record sales with major transformation to Al Safa. Our goal is to have rapid growth, our mission to exceed customer expectations with outstanding customerservice. Engro foods will not comprise when it comes to halal and consumer food safety”.
Conservative MP Brad Butt from Mississauga-Streetsville comments “On behalf of the prime minister, congratulations to what you are doing. You are marketing products all around the world. We have a very strong Pakistani and Muslim community”.
