Officials and dignitaries at the inaugural ceremony at LuLu Hypermarket, Al Gharafa. PICTURE: Jayaram

LuLu Hypermarket Group is hosting the Discover America food festival for the first time in Qatar.
This festival was inaugurated yesterday at LuLu Hypermarket, Al Gharafa, by Ilona Shtrom, senior commercial officer at the US embassy, and Theresa Backus Dunn, executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce, in the presence of a number of dignitaries and senior executives from the retail industry.  
Michael Henderson, business development and research director at Choose New Jersey; Anissa Lahreche, senior commercial specialist at the US Commercial Service; Ryan El Zein, commercial specialist; and Mohamed Althaf, director of LuLu Group International, were also present at the inaugural ceremony.
The festival, is being hosted in order to “discover the uniqueness of American food and food products and promote the same in the Middle East”, the company said in a statement yesterday.
“The aim is to bring ‘the best of America’ to Qatar and provide nationals and expatriates of all ages with an opportunity to enjoy America’s best food products. The festival is largely focused on food as well as the non-food and health & beauty categories. The event has been held in Kuwait for the last three years and been very successful. This is the first time it is being hosted in Qatar,” the statement noted.   
Commenting on the Discover America Week food festival, Althaf said: “We have been importing high-quality US products for more than a decade in the Qatar region and little over four decades now at the corporate level. With this festival, we intend to further promote US products through our stores across the region.”

Expansion plans in US

As part of its expansion programme, LuLu Group plans to make a foray into the US market by setting up a logistics facility for initiating procurement, consolidation and export of food, non-food, chilled and frozen products of US origin, the company has said in a statement.  
Recently, the company has identified a few projects in New Jersey and Houston and the necessary spadework is under way. The facility is expected to be operational within a couple
of months, the statement points out.
The facility will also initiate necessary value addition by date coding and labelling for different countries, translation of labels, halal and other relevant certifications and export on a regular basis to its supermarkets and hypermarkets across the GCC countries.
This centre will also focus on sourcing goods directly from the major manufacturers, the statement adds.