Kuwait, February 29, 2016 — Mezzan Holding KSCC, one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of food, beverage, FMCG and pharmaceutical products in the Gulf, announced that it is extending supplies to the World Food Program’s (WFP) airdrop missions over Syria’s Deir Al Zoor.
The first 78 MT of food parcels were delivered on February 24th, by Mezzan Holding’s subsidiary, Tazweed, with 2,340 MT of food parcels to be delivered in 90 planned rotations. Tazweed is the sole supplier and partner on the airdrop operation so far.
This comes in addition to the ongoing delivered urgent aid to villages in the southern part of Syria under the UN WFP border line.
The UN Task Force on Humanitarian Access to Syria has resorted to airdrops as the only way to reach 200,000 people enduring severe food shortages and rapidly deteriorating conditions in Deir Al Zoor where it is reported that up to 20 people have already died of starvation.
The has resorted to airdrops as UN trucks have slowly been trying to deliver supplies to five besieged areas in eastern Syria and only succeeded in reaching 2% of those in need. This is the first time Jordan and the WFP have supported airdrops with international support from the United Nations.
Mezzan Holding CEO, Garry Walsh, said: “We are honored to be chosen by the WFP to help with food relief efforts in Syria and hope the security and weather conditions allow us to complete the planned rotations and continue this project to bring aid to Syrians in besieged areas. I would like to thank our Tazweed team for making this operation successful and for their efforts to deliver the packages on short notice.”
(ENDS)
About Mezzan Holding:
■ Operates in seven countries through 29 subsidiaries with 7,500 employees
■ Distributes over 25,000 Stock Keeping Units (SKU), making it one of the largest operators in terms of SKUs, unit sales, market share and in terms of share of revenues of total consumer spending in consumer categories served by the company
■ Active in various segments of the consumer staple industry supported by long-standing relationships with Johnson & Johnson, Olayan Kimberly-Clark, Reckitt Benckiser, General Mills, Arla Foods, Sara Lee and many other leading brands and manufacturers
■ Serves over 100,000 meals a day in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE through its catering business
■ Has a total of 130,000 square meters in food, beverage and FMCG manufacturing facilities in Kuwait, Qatar, UAE and Afghanistan
■ Leverages long-standing relationships with private and cooperative supermarkets
■ Vertically integrated into complementary business operations, including packaging, catering, contract services and logistics
■ Food services customers include multinational fast food chains, airline catering services and large food services companies.
Mezzan Holding is a 70-year old company that was listed on Kuwait Stock Exchange in the second quarter of 2015. The company is headquartered in Kuwait with direct operational activities in Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, and Afghanistan.
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For more information, please contact:
Fatima El-Saadani | Bensirri Public Relations | Tel: +965 999 81334 | email: fatima@bensirri.com