Samer Choucair: Surging Beef Demand Opens a New Investment Opportunity in Saudi Food Security
Investment strategist Samer Choucair said continued growth in Saudi demand for beef reflects an important shift in consumption patterns and the structure of the food and services sectors, noting that the expansion of restaurants, hospitality, tourism, and catering is generating growing demand for more efficient and resilient food supply chains.
Choucair explained that international trade data highlights the significant scale of Saudi Arabia’s beef imports. In 2024, the Kingdom imported approximately 110.1 million kilograms of frozen boneless beef, while imports of fresh and chilled beef in the same category reached around 38.8 million kilograms.
India, Brazil, and Australia were among the leading suppliers of frozen beef, while Brazil, Australia, India, Ethiopia, and Pakistan were among the key suppliers of fresh and chilled beef.
According to Choucair, diversifying import sources is an important component of Saudi Arabia’s food-security resilience because it reduces reliance on any single market or supplier. At the same time, however, transportation, cold storage, refrigeration, and inventory management become critical factors in protecting corporate margins and maintaining price stability.
Investment Opportunity Extends Across the Entire Value Chain
Choucair said the investment opportunity extends well beyond the trading of raw meat and encompasses the entire value chain — from importing, refrigerated storage, and transportation to processing, packaging, distribution, catering, and restaurant supply chains.
He added that directing capital toward infrastructure that creates local value could generate more sustainable returns than relying solely on traditional trading margins.
The continued expansion of Saudi Arabia’s hospitality, restaurant, and events sectors, alongside population and tourism growth, is supporting long-term demand for animal protein and making investment in food supply chains part of the broader transformation of the non-oil economy.
Food-Security Resilience Becomes an Investment Theme
Choucair said institutional investors should monitor three key factors.
First is the ability of companies to secure diversified sources of supply. Second is the efficiency of their cold-chain and distribution networks. Third is their ability to convert imported products into higher-value products within Saudi Arabia.
He noted that fluctuations in feed costs, freight rates, foreign-exchange rates, and trade policies in exporting countries remain among the key risks that companies and investors must manage.
For investors, the distinction between companies that simply import and distribute products and those that control more of the value chain could become increasingly important.
Local Production and Imports Can Develop in Parallel
Choucair emphasized that strengthening domestic production does not necessarily mean replacing imports.
Instead, the two can operate in parallel as part of a more resilient national food-security strategy: imports can provide supply diversity and stability, while domestic investment can capture additional value through processing, storage, distribution, and other downstream activities.
This approach, he said, could help Saudi Arabia build greater resilience without sacrificing the flexibility provided by international sourcing.
From Food Trading to Integrated Value Chains
Choucair concluded that the protein sector provides a clear example of how capital allocation in the Saudi economy is shifting from traditional trading toward the development of integrated value chains.
Companies capable of combining food security, logistics efficiency, technology, and domestic processing are likely to be best positioned to benefit from rising demand over the coming years.
For institutional investors, the opportunity therefore lies not simply in the growth of beef consumption, but in identifying the businesses building the infrastructure behind that growth — from cold-chain logistics and processing facilities to technology-enabled distribution and integrated food-service networks.