DMCC has signed a strategic memorandum of understanding (MoU) with France’s leading honey producer and processor, Naturalim France Miel (NFM), in a move aimed at expanding the capabilities of the DMCC Honey Centre and reinforcing Dubai’s position as a regional hub for the global honey trade.
The partnership will enhance knowledge exchange, improve quality standards, and support the development of the honey value chain, strengthening the emirate’s role as a key gateway for international honey producers and traders.
The partnership will combine DMCC’s ambition to establish a world-class honey ecosystem with NFM’s technical expertise across honey production, testing, processing, and international market development.
Together, the two organizations will explore opportunities to strengthen quality standards, improve traceability, enhance local production capabilities, and unlock new export opportunities for Emirati honey.
As part of the collaboration, DMCC and NFM will work together to explore the transfer of international apicultural best practices to support the development of the UAE beekeeping sector. This includes knowledge sharing across hive and colony management, harvesting techniques, packaging protocols, and the selection of melliferous plant species, helping to build local capability while supporting the long-term competitiveness of Emirati honey producers.
The agreement will also explore the establishment of a dedicated honey testing laboratory within the DMCC Honey Centre, enabling advanced quality assurance, analytical testing, and traceability standards through technical knowledge transfer, laboratory design support, personnel training, and ongoing audit practices.
Alongside this, NFM will provide expertise in industrial process engineering to optimize honey packaging operations and strengthen value-added processing capabilities.
Ahmed Bin Sulayem Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer DMCC
“The future of commodities lies not only in trading them, but in building the specialist ecosystems that support quality, innovation, provenance, and international market access. The DMCC Honey Centre is another example of how we are creating these ecosystems to capture greater value across global supply chains, bringing together producers, testing capabilities, and commercial expertise within a single integrated hub. Through our partnership with Naturalim France Miel, we will draw on their decades of international experience to strengthen the UAE’s beekeeping sector, develop rigorous quality and traceability standards, and position Dubai as a leading regional centre for the honey trade.”
Xavier Turlin, General Manager, Naturalim France Miel, said that, “Naturalim France Miel has built its reputation on quality, traceability and technical excellence across every stage of the honey value chain.”
“We are pleased to partner with DMCC to share this expertise as it develops the Honey Centre into a platform that supports producers, raises industry standards, and creates new trade opportunities – while strengthening the integrity of the honey market and supporting efforts to combat fraud that undermines it. By combining international best practice with Dubai’s position as a global trading hub, we see significant potential to strengthen the regional honey ecosystem and support its long-term growth,” Turlin added.
