Nongshim lands deal to export smart farms to Saudi Arabia

South Korea's food and beverage giant Nongshim Co. will export smart farms to Saudi Arabia, following a similar deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) concluded in January.

Nongshim on Monday said it signed a memorandum of understanding in Saudi Arabia on the day before to export smart farms there.

The company is a member of a consortium with Pomit, an information technology company for smart farms, Agro Solution Korea and MS Group.

The consortium and Saudi Greenhouses, Saudi Arabia's leading company for agricultural product cultivation and distribution, concluded the MOU.

Nongshim will install smart farms in the Mideast country for producing South Korean varieties of strawberries year-round.

The business scale of the smart farm project is $30 million, and Nongshim plans to create business opportunities of over $100 million with high value-added crops.

In January this year, the consortium signed an MOU with Al Marina Holdings, a hotel and distribution company based in the UAE, for the setup and operation of strawberry smart farms.

In 1995, Nongshim opened a think tank for potatoes in Pyeongchang County, Gangwon Province, and began research on smart farms.

In November last year, it exported for the first time a container-type smart farm to Oman to enter the global market for the sector.

"We will develop the smart farm business as a new growth engine for Nongshim," a company source said.

Write to Kyeong-je Han at hankyung@hankyung.com