Al Ghunaim to bring Ocean Basket restaurants to Kuwait

Kuwait’s Al Ghunaim Trading Company has signed an agreement with South African seafood chain Ocean Basket to open five restaurants in as many years across the Gulf nation.

Al Ghunaim Trading Company (profile), the third-largest restaurant company in Kuwait, operates popular casual dining outlets including Chili’s, Noodle House, Carino’s Italian Grilli, Moti Mahal and Zeintouna. The privately owned food and beverage retailer and food distributor also operates in Bahrain and Lebanon.

Al Ghunaim Chairman Abdulghani Al-Ghunaim (biography), said: “We learned about Ocean Basket when one of our senior managers was working in Egypt and decided it would be perfect to enhance the group basket of flavors that we currently offer our customers.The addition of Kuwait means Ocean Basket will be present in 17 countries, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Ocean Basket management is also looking to open in other Gulf nations such as Qatar and Oman.

Ocean Basket CEO Grace Harding said: “We welcome Kuwait to the Ocean Basket family and look forward to a long and fruitful partnership. We need to ensure the success of our partners by creating a globally relevant and meaningful brand and systems and infrastructure that supports them. That is our primary responsibility, so everything we do is about sustainability and making sure that our brand succeeds in the future.”