Case Studies & White Papers

Nabil Foods mission is to feed the Middle East region with their high-end variety of chilled and frozen food products. JBT plays the important role of keeping Nabil Foods up and running 24/7 while ensuring production schedules are met and delivering a high quality and consistent product output.

Al-Nabil Food Industries Co. Ltd. (Nabil Foods) is the largest producer of chilled and frozen food products in Jordan and holds a significant and growing share of the market. Their high-end products include a wide range of beef and chicken burgers, chicken strips and nuggets, cold cuts, ethnic foods, ready meals, desserts and they are sold to retail, catering, hotels and quick service restaurant (QSR) customers across the entire MENA region. In Jordan, the company is a one-stop-shop supplier to the largest QSR customers such as McDonald’s, KFC, Papa Johns, Subway and many other leading QSRs.

History of Nabil Foods

The company started as a small family business in 1945 by the Rassam family. Since then, Nabil Foods has evolved into a full institutional company with over 850 employees. Even though Nabil Foods has grown and taken in new partners they stay true and passionate about delivering premium, healthy and home-cooked style products to the families of Jordan and the broader MENA region.

“We want to be in each and every meal and we do not sacrifice on quality,” Mr Ahmed Sallakh, CEO at Nabil Foods says. Dedicated to only using the best, state of the art technology in the food processing industry Nabil Foods has relied on JBT as their sole supplier of coating, frying, cooking and freezing equipment for over 15 years.

Drivers behind good partnership 

When seeking partners, Nabil Foods choose top of the line machinery for production reliability and food safety. According to Mr Sallakh, JBT meet this requirement and delivers extra value through a mutual profit partnership and a service team with good response time and ongoing customer service. He gives an example. “We recently had a breakdown which needed to be quickly resolved in order to continue production and to deliver on time. JBT was able to mobilize a service engineer from Eqypt and within 24 hours the engineer was at the Nabil factory in Jordan. JBT understood the customer need for sending a technical engineer on time. Moreover, they resolved the issue swiftly and with confidence.” According to Mr Sallakh this is the most important driver for a good partnership; the after sales service. “We are very pleased with JBT and the direction of our partnership. The machinery is performing at its best, but as important, is the support from JBT´s after sales service. We are able to run 24/7 because of JBT.” Mr Ramzi Khatib, COO at Nabil Foods adds, “you can´t easily find the same excellent service on the market compared to the one JBT provides.”

Investing in performance

Backed up by the confidence of successful running performance, Nabil Foods is now expanding production with a new cooking line from JBT to reach their next capacity goal. The new line consists of JBT´s latest technology and state of the art contact cooking and impingement oven solution for cooking and roasting of chicken fillets. The searing technology of the contact cooker sets the surface of the product to seal the natural juices inside the product prior to entering the continuous oven. The impingement oven´s cooking time and the number of overcooked products is greatly reduced while delivering a yield increase of up to 4%. Mr Khatib says “We were intrigued by the yield advantages this innovative combination of machines could provide to us and by the guarantee of a continued home-style appearance and juicy taste that is unmatched.“

Faced with unplanned downtime

Nabil Foods production site in Amman, Jordan operates more than ten production lines 24/7 all year round with high line utilization figures. Given its increasing volumes and market demand there is no room for any unscheduled downtime or lengthy overhauls.

“Our key concern is disruption to production. We are currently delivering double digit sales growth and we need to keep our leading position in the market and this means we can´t afford any production slow down”, Mr Sallakh stresses. Unexpected delays can be significant, while every gain in efficiency and reliability makes a huge positive difference. JBT´s PRoCARE Service agreement is about making sure equipment and production performs to the optimum level, while minimizing unplanned downtime.

In 2018, Nabil Foods was faced with several downtime challenges following postponement of the renewal for their PRoCARE service agreement with JBT. The significance of this postponement became evident during the year of 2018 when Nabil Foods suffered a number of technical issues and breakdowns due to lack of preventive maintenance. The production line had gone from proactive to reactive without the regular inspections, timely replacement of worn parts and the lack of training of staff. The unplanned downtime hours quickly started to eat into their revenue and lines’ efficiency figures.

When there is no room for downtime

In early 2019, Nabil Foods contacted JBT to renew the PRoCARE service agreement in order to resolve their production issues. Since renewal, unplanned downtime hours have fallen by 48% compared to 2018. Now, service has gone back to being proactive and effective: worn parts are replaced before breakdown, resulting in reduced downtime, improved reliability and lower cost of ownership. Mr Ahmed Hussein, Engineering Manager at Nabil Foods explains “JBT came in and supported us swiftly, thoroughly, and with patience, knowledge and generosity to resolve an array of challenges we were facing and to continuously develop our equipment and internal engineering services. We appreciate finding real professionals, who offer a personalized service response and who have fluent understanding of our products. Fundamentally, they have become a key partner for our organization, and from my standpoint, I couldn’t have expected better. Thanks to JBT, Nabil Foods unplanned downtime problems are now in the past.”