Saskatoon businessman named Oslo Business for Peace Award recipient

A Saskatoon man is receiving international recognition. Murad Al-Katib will be the first Canadian to receive the Oslo Business for Peace Award.

As the president and CEO of AGT Food and Ingredients, Al-Katib has helped provide more than four-million rations for Syrian refugees.

“I want to be a champion of compassionate entrepreneurship, a world in which entrepreneurs harness their energies to help society solve of its problems,” Al-Katib said.

“For me, food security, famine, food aid and emergency refugee food response is a chosen lifetime cause for me, one that I feel strongly about.”

The award is presented every year by a committee of Nobel laureates.

The committee said Al-Katib is being acknowledged for his efforts to extend the knowledge of food production and logistics to improve the lives of people in other parts of the world.

Al-Katib said he wants his company to be part of the solution.

“We’re the start of the protein highway in the world,” Al-Katib said.

“We’re bringing that to the world and incomes are rising and populations are rising, so when we look at that, not only is it good business, but it actually can create billions of dollars of new economic opportunities for our province and we’re going to keep pushing to do our part to bring those opportunities home.”

He will receive the award in Norway on May 16.