UAE's Enoc eyes double food, beverage revenue

Dubai - Dubai firm plans 60 outlets across the Gulf countries in next few years.

Retail expansion within the UAE and Saudi Arabia will boost food and beverage (F&B) revenues of Emirates National Oil Company (Enoc) more than 100 per cent next year, according to a top official of the company.
"F&B contribution to our total revenues is very small and our strategy is to focus more on non-fuel business," Enoc Retail managing director Burhan Al Hashemi told Khaleej Times during an interview.
Enoc Retail is a retail arm of Enoc Group and operates a network of over 140 service stations and serve more than 70 million customers annually in Dubai and Northern Emirates. In addition to its core fuel retailing, the service stations feature Zoom convenience stores, Pronto fresh food and coffee, car wash and quick lube outlets, as well as Autopro automotive services and Tasjeel vehicle testing and registration. The Dubai company, which is a sole franchisee of Paavos Pizza for the GCC, recently opened its flagship outlet of Paavos Pizza on The Palm. "The new outlet is our seventh and we are going to open another in JLT before the end of 2015," Al Hashemi said.
"Next year, we will open eight more pizza outlets across the UAE. Definitely, we are going to have double growth in F&B segment next year," he said.
Without mentioning a time frame, he said the company is looking for a total of 60 outlets across the Gulf countries in the next few years.
Talking about Zoom super stores, he mentioned that there are three categories of Zoom stores. "One of them is within gas stations, which are 12. We have around 41 in metro stations in Dubai and 29 standalone stores," he explained.
Regarding expansion in Saudi Arabia, the managing director said the plan is to get a total 15 Zoom stores in the kingdom by the end of 2016. "The company has only two stores at the moment in the neighbouring country," he added.
He said that overall 2015 was good for the company and hopes that 2016 will be better than this year. "Oil price is disappointing at the current level and it will be better for the country and the region if oil price goes up," he added.
During a meeting in Vienna on Friday, members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries failed to agree an oil production ceiling. A final Opec statement was issued with no mention of a new production ceiling. Oil prices have more than halved over the past 18 months to a fraction of what most Opec members need to balance their budgets. Brent oil futures fell by one per cent on Friday to trade around $43 a barrel.
- abdulbasit@khaleejtimes.com