World Fare
- Pipeline
- In Search Of Oil
- Saudi Aramco Publications
Author: Aramco World
Released 20 May 2007
Aramco World - November, 1956
There are those occasions in stores everywhere when some item happens to be out of stock. Aramco's family issue stores and canteens in Saudi Arabia are no exception.
So far, by good fortune, there's no recorded instance of one of the old-time employees being within earshot when a housewife has expressed her anguish over such a development, and well it is, too: The loudness of his reaction would unquestionably reach into the upper decibels. He remembers when.
As a matter of fact, there's very little running out any more, although it calls for some fast and fancy maneuvering now and then by those who must try to satisfy the shopping desires of some 21,000 employees, plus some 3,700 members of their families, with the varied preferences of many nationalities: Middle Eastern, Far Eastern and Western.
This produce from the gardens of Lebanon is destined for air shipment to Aramco's supermarkets a thousand miles away in eastern Saudi Arabia, where it will be made available to shoppers within a matter of hours.
The supplies must come from all over the world, so that Aramco may utilize the diverse assortment of currencies it receives for the oil it sells. And, all of these hundreds of items - from the fresh fish of the Persian Gulf to the rice of Thailand - must be scheduled for arrival so that housewives will find them on the shelves and in the chill cases, whether their whim be for Australian lobster tail, or English sole, or American canned peas.
It all adds up to a million-dollar non-profit business for the food stores and canteens in the three districts: Dhahran, Ras Tanura and Abqaiq; and it involves not only food, but such heterogenous canteen articles as cosmetics and work shoes, and toilet articles, newspapers, magazines, cigars, cigarettes... The list could go on and on. The more you learn about the operation, and all of the factors involved, the more it strikes you as something of a minor miracle.
Aramco housewives can buy fresh fruit from Syria and Jordan as well as Lebanon at the markets in the oil towns on the Persian Gulf.
Dhahran, being the largest district, does the biggest business; so it's a good place to see how the wheels turn. It's a good place, also, to learn how things have changed, because some of the store's operators have been around since the war days. They can remember, for example, when a head of lettuce was one of the most beautiful sights in the world.
"I'll never forget," one of them recalls, "that first shipment of fresh lettuce that came in from New York in November 1945. We hadn't seen a head of lettuce in years - all during the war, and up until we were able to get that first supply. It may sound hard to believe, but we actually ate lettuce three times a day - breakfast, lunch and dinner - until every bit was gone."
But, let's look at the present, as you'll see it at the family issue store at Dhahran...
The housewife from the United States, walking into it for the first time, can readily imagine herself in a supermarket in Bronxville, or Sarasota, or Peoria, or almost any other American community. Just like back home, she'll find other women waiting outside for the doors to open at nine a.m., and it won't be long before the scene within is the same old milling, grabbing and cart-dodging that she knew back home. Also happy buzzing and chirruping: This is the camp gossip center.
Every supermarket has its check-out line. The only difference in Dhahran is that customers pay their food bills in riyals, the currency of Saudi Arabia.
The main differences that she'll note are that the packages will be marked, not only "U.S.A," but also "Lebanon," "Holland," "Denmark," and many another land all over the globe; that the servants among the shoppers will be, not housemaids, but houseboys, many of them from India; and that many of the prices, to her astonishment and delight, will be lower that she's ever seen, although some will be about the same, and a few higher. Aramco tries to set prices at cost, but with long distances and customs duties involved, these factors must be taken into account in the prices.
The items on the shelves are the same as in the States, along with certain other - such as spices, cheese and flavorings - that are found only in the largest American stores, or at premium-price dealers in imported delicacies. All essential items are carried. Besides foods, including baby foods, the shopper will find the usual household articles: paper napkins, waxed paper and aluminum foil, glasses and dishes, mops, dish cloths and pot holders, light bulbs, soaps, detergents, soap pads and steel wool - just about everything.
Americans in Dhahran snap up the latest magazines which have been flown in from the United States.
What strikes the first-time shopper in these markets in eastern Saudi Arabia are the price tags themselves. They are marked in Saudi riyals (SR). One riyal is worth about twenty-seven United States cents.
Whatever the currency, every shopper is interested in prices. Here are some of the dollar equivalents of some of the tags on a typical mid-summer day in 1956:
Take meats: spareribs are $.76 a pound; pork loin roast, $.84; top round, $.76; leg of lamb, $.66; loin lamb chops, $.84; rib lamb chops, $.68; top sirloin, $.84; and filet mignon, $1.36 a pound. Most of the meat is from Australia, and no honest reporter would pretend that the flavor or texture can compare with that of prime or choice cuts in the United States, but the housewife or her cook will soon learn to prepare it so that it's quite enjoyable. Some very good beef is obtained occasionally from Holland, but the available supply is limited. Pre-packing of meats for self-service will be initiated in the near future.
Much of the fresh fruits and produce, in great variety, come from Lebanon, and you'll see such price tags as lettuce and artichokes, $.26 a pound; celery, $.25; green bell peppers, $.26; carrots, $.22; tomatoes, $.29; lemons, $.28 and fresh eggs from Beirut $.64 to $.97 a dozen.
Dhahran youngsters are as avid readers of picture books as their contemporaries back in the States.
"We're sort of proud of the fresh produce operation," one of the managers says. "The airplane will arrive from Beirut in the morning; the refrigerated truck is there to offload it; and we have it on the shelves, ready for the customers, within two hours."
In the field of conventional canned goods, prices will run around $.19 for soups; $.27 for vegetables, and $.17 to $.20 for frozen juices. The tag on Alaska salmon says $.78 and on corned beef, $.43.
Most of the frozen foods come from the United States, and the boats arrive monthly; but some of them are from Europe, and efforts are being made to get more of them from there. Some typical prices are: roasting chickens. $.71 a pound; chicken legs, $1.00; chicken breasts, $1.11; frankfurters, $.57; hamburger, $.39; waffles, $.26; milk, $.24 and various frozen vegetables from $.22 to $.36.
Standard pantry shelf products include coffee at $1.18 a pound; tea bags (100's), $.96; sugar, $.14; corn flakes, $.32 and a large jar of mayonnaise for $.84. Bread (white, whole wheat and French) is made daily at the company bakery in Dhahran, and sells at $.19 for a half-pound loaf. Excellent ice cream is also made daily in Dhahran, from Danish mix, for $.32 a quart.
The corn offered at the Dhahran supermarket does not come all the way from America's Middle West. It is grown in the nearby fertile regions of the Middle East.
All in all, today's family issue store at Dhahran is quite a contrast to the facilities that existed when the first families returned in the spring of 1945. As a matter of fact, it wasn't really a "store," at all, but a 16-by-20-foot sample room, where people could see what was available, and place their orders to be delivered from the commissary. Monthly sales figures for the period are not available, but, with only eight or nine families in camp at the time, it is easy to see that was comparatively insignificant compared to today's volume.
Another idea of the difference can be had at the commissary, which receives and issues all of the food and non-food items for dining facilities, food stores and canteens in all three districts, plus those for the field parties of geologists and others. The commissary handles millions of dollars' worth of shipments annually, turning over its stock five times a year.
The present 468-by-133-foot building, with its dry storage rooms and its 26,000 cubic feet of chill and freeze rooms, has already been outgrown, and a new building 270-by-120 feet has been constructed.
Locally bottled soft drinks sell fast during the long Arabian summers. This inventory clerk at Dhahran makes sure that the supply is ahead of the demand.
There are problems in using non-dollar food sources. Although steady improvement is being made, these foreign sources don't always have the fixed standards of grading and packing which exist in the United states. Also, in spite of constant effort, a shipment is sometimes delayed, or a clerk makes an error, and something is omitted. But... somehow, things get on the shelves.
The food and retail store people like to have you know that they operate with what they believe to be the largest percentage of non-American employees of any Aramco unit: and that these men, mostly Saudis, have advanced from complete inexperience to a high degree of competence. One of the yardsticks is "accountability," the storekeeper's word for what-happens-to-what. Here the monthly inventories show that accountability is quite able to face comparison with that of United States stores.
Twelve thousand rolls, an equal number of buns, and three thousand loaves of bread are baked every day at Dhahran.
So, the small group of housewives, who in 1945 formed the vanguard of returnees to Saudi Arabia after four years of war-enforced absence, can assure the later arrivals that "things have come a long way." One old-timer recalls the earlier days:
"As everybody here remembers, purchases were difficult to make for a long time after the war ended, and, even when you could buy things, the deliveries were slow and uncertain. Everybody had to be satisfied with limited choices, and we'd run out of things quite frequently. Now, our supplies come in with regularity most of the time.
"Of course, even if we could carry every brand and variety of food in the world, and never run out of anything, and could let the customers carry away their supplies free, people would get tired of coming into the same store all of the time. That's just normal human nature."
American housewives in Saudi Arabia can prepare the most exacting recipes because the ingredients are stocked at the Aramco markets. These stores, of course, carry a complete assortment of baby foods.
There's another angle of normal human nature that's no different in Saudi Arabia from anywhere else: When is the biggest business done?
"The day after payday."