Bringing all natural desserts to the table

Dubai: Samia W. Ataya realised her goal of making healthy eating easy in 2010 when she opened Catwalk Cow, a gourmet food business that manufactures mixes for different desserts.

From its factory in Sharjah, Catwalk Cow’s packaged mixes are manufactured and supplied to supermarkets and gourmet stores in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar.

The colorful boxes contain mixes for cakes, brownies and other desserts.

“We manufacture healthy dessert recipes,” said Ataya, the businesses’ founder.

She added that the mixes are free of preservatives, additives and other potentially harmful chemicals.

One box is priced between Dh19 to Dh23, which is higher than other options in the market.

The natural ingredients and lack of preservatives and additives have earned the products higher price tags, according to Ataya.

“Our products are made using pure ingredients, like raw cane sugar, real vanilla…and our flour is not bleached. We source from small, family-run farms,” she said.

The weight of the dessert mixes varies. The cake mix, for instance, can be used to make a cake that weighs between 400 to 550 grams.

Like many entrepreneurs, Ataya underwent a long process before establishing her business.

“Entry to the food business is not easy,” she said.

The work involved determining the ingredients to use and where to source them from, as well as sending product samples to a laboratory for testing.

Next, she sought approval for food manufacturing.

“Trying to get certified is hard,” she added.

Business must meet a number of requirements to be able to manufacture food and beverages in Dubai.

According to the HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) guidelines, manufacturers must provide food that is safe to consume. To ensure this, they must meet a number of requirements.

Some of these include controlling the temperature of the facility, providing clean transportation vehicles, as well as boxes and containers to protect food from dust and fumes.

Meanwhile, once Ataya managed to get her products on supermarket shelves, she faced some setbacks.

“The supermarkets loved it, but they were afraid of people’s responses,” she said.

Customers are hesitant to buy premium products that are locally manufactured when compared to US made alternatives, she explained.

Additionally, customers tend to “just care about the taste,” without paying much attention to the natural ingredients of products, she said.

She also said that customers tend to confuse natural food with organic alternatives.

“We went through an education process on why we’re not organic. Organic products [have] a 15 to 20 per cent allowance for chemicals,” she said.

When asked what the future holds for Catwalk Cow, Ataya said she hopes to revamp the products’ packaging to make it more attractive to customers.

Her other plans include private labeling her products, as well as expanding her business regionally and possibly internationally, she said.

Meanwhile, Ataya recommends new players in the industry to bring a unique product to the market.

“If you’re new, someone can wipe you out. So don’t create an easily copied brand. The baking segment is easy to enter if you have something different,” she said.

When asked how her business stands out from competition, she said: “We stand out by taste…and delivering products that are free of preservatives with a one year shelf life.”