Emirati entrepreneur blazes a trail

Dubai: A low budget or even the lack of it should not serve as a deterrent to women entrepreneurs.

Thus feels Sahar Abu Aisha, a UAE national, who converted a sweet-making business run from within the confines of her home into a gourmet bakery shop, that churns out Emirati sweets with an international touch.

“The idea of starting a business came from my passion for cooking and making Emirati sweets,” Sahar said. “With my children’s encouragement, I took my talent of making sweets further and decided to start my own business.”

Her experience in cooking led to the opening of Gourmandise Sweets and Cakes, a Dubai-based sweet supplier that Sahar and her daughter Mona Abu Aisha started in 2009. While the mother handled ingredients and research development, the daughter handled the marketing side of the business.

Started as a home enterprise from Abu Aisha’s kitchen three years ago, Gourmandise expanded from serving local families to catering to airlines, hotels, weddings and events. It specialises in making local and traditional sweets with modern ingredients to integrate the Arabic and western tastes.

“What upsets me the most is the unpopularity of Emirati sweets among Westerners; sweets from all over the world have reached us but no one knows anything about Emirati sweets, not even other Arabs,” Sahar said. “This encouraged me to make Emirati sweets with a difference, by mixing them with different ingredients to reach out to other nationalities and cultures.”

As Sahar puts it, she made the sweets in different shapes — in sweet cups and in bite-sizes mixed with Oreo, caramel, pistachio, sesame and kunafa among other flavours, to make it more appealing to Western expatriates. She plans to introduce new versions of Emirati sweets during Ramadan.

“During Ramadan, there is usually a high demand for mamoul and the khaleeji dessert batheetha cubes specifically and we will also be making rice pudding in a cup, muhalabiya in a cup and kunafa bites,” Sahar said, adding that orders for the upcoming Sunday (tomorrow) has already reached 1,700.

All sweets in Gourmandise are hand-made by around 10 chefs who work depending on the amount of orders they receive. One kilogram of batheetha sweets costs Dh135. Word of mouth

“The initial [advertising] was done through word of mouth among local families and the message soon started spreading,” Sahar said. “People started ordering from us and we grew from five customers to suddenly 15 and more.”

Using Facebook and Twitter to reach out to customers and get their feedback, Gourmandise slowly started expanding to reach hundreds of customers.

With most initial customers turning out to be UAE nationals, Sahar said she decided to reach out to Western expatriates by mixing Emirati desserts with western ingredients. She is currently considering new marketing strategies and actively promoting the outlet through social media.

Sahar also plans to expand the business in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain to make it easier for customers to buy her sweets since most orders come from the capital. Expansion will be either by supplying sweets to other markets or through partnerships.

Gourmandise is currently registered under the Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Establishment, which supports UAE nationals with a talent and provides them with accessibility to start their business.

“The establishment helped us with the licensing procedures and other paperwork, making it so much easier for us,” Mona said. “They also offer money for UAE nationals, but we started the business with our own budget.”

Sahar advises other women to capitalise on their latent talents. “I believe women should show their talent without hiding behind the curtains,” she said. “If they are good at anything, they should go out and show it without being afraid of anything, not even a low budget.”

— Sherouk Zakaria is an intern at Gulf News