Baladna, GrowFast partner to strengthen food security

SYRIA – Baladna has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with GrowFast in Damascus to support Syrian entrepreneurs and help them turn innovative ideas into productive businesses with room to grow.

The signing ceremony recognised six winning ventures from the “Nassaj Al Mustaqbal” textile entrepreneurship competition as part of efforts to strengthen their business capabilities and prepare them for the market.

Baladna also announced a new initiative in agricultural and food technologies. It includes training sessions at universities and a startup competition for young entrepreneurs, with the winners to be announced in May 2027.

These initiatives form part of Baladna’s wider activities in Syria, where the company is developing an integrated farm and dairy processing facility and exploring opportunities in textiles, sugar, strategic crops and citrus.

The MoU comes after Baladna Food Industries recently entered an advisory agreement with the International Finance Corporation to support the recovery of Syria’s dairy sector.

This follows Baladna’s board approval for a US$250 million integrated industrial project that includes a dairy plant, juice processing facility, plastic packaging unit, and advanced water treatment plant.

The advisory engagement is expected to be phased, beginning with analytical and field-based assessments and advancing toward practical supply-chain models suited to Syria’s current context. 

Syria remains one of the most food-insecure countries globally, with 9.1 million people food insecure, according to the World Food Programme. 

Years of conflict severely disrupted domestic food production and smallholder farming systems, with dairy particularly affected.

Marek Warzywoda, Group CEO of Baladna, explained that the work will look to see if a sustainable dairy sector can be rebuilt on a large scale by assessing demand, processing needs, and market conditions. 

He noted that by grounding potential future investments in practical realities on the ground, the company aims to help restore domestic dairy production in a way that supports nutrition, creates jobs, and delivers long-term value. 

The US$250 million project is designed as an integrated industrial complex, bringing together production, processing, and the supporting systems that make food distribution possible.

When fully operational, the facility will process milk and juice, handle the containers needed to ship them, and treat water for both production and local community use.

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