Food Manufactory LLC. Food Manufactory LLC.

Food Manufactory LLC

Mohamed Alawadhi tells Hotelier why impeccable service will be the USP of his new specialist food firm

When was your company established?
In October 2012, I negotiated with a distributor of Asian food products in Dubai to open a company, Food Manufactory (FM) LLC on February 2013. However, the plans fell through, but after learning from this experience and starting again, I now have a factory and office in Dubai Investment Park which will be officially opened at the end of October 2013 or early November 2013.

Story continues below
Advertisement

What is your company’s vision?
Our vision is to train a team under European management to produce tailor-made items for hotels in smaller quantities. We are not like other firms where you have to make monthly orders of 10 tonnes or 10,000 litres.

How many people are employed in your company?
Currently we have 14 in total, with four working in management and sales, and 10 in production. If all goes according to plan, we will eventually have up to 80 people in the factory. However, I would like to point out that my goal is not to employ a multitude of staff for no reason — I want to create products with professional equipment to guarantee consistency and quality.

Can you tell us a little bit more about your team?
The Food Manufactory competence team consists of a teppanyaki master and noodle/dumpling specialist Xiao Wang from Shanghai, who has previously worked for Bohnert GmbH Germany; Heike Voigt, who is the first European female sushi champion in the UAE and plays an advisory role in Asian food creations and concepts; and dumpling specialist chef Yodkwan Lulitananda, who also owns the Kwanchitr restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand.

What are your core products for the hospitality industry?
We will be producing different Asian dumplings, noodles, sauces, marinating sauces, and soups.

What will be your best seller?
At the moment we are getting positive feedback for items including sauces, dumplings and noodles, fresh and frozen. However, Food Manufactory’s best seller would be its offering to provide custom solutions to chefs and giving them whatever they need.

Do you already have any customers?
We are currently in talks with restaurant chains and large food distributors that have expressed a keen in Food Manufactory’s products in the UAE as well as the GCC market. We haven’t signed the contracts yet but the kinds of customers we anticipate are restaurant chains, as well as four and five-star hotels.

Why did you decide to open a factory in the UAE?
One of the main reasons was to locally produce Asian food items for the Middle East and the GCC. Normally these are imported from places like Vietnam or Thailand. However if you produce items locally you stay in complete control. Here, we can control everything from hygiene to manufacturing, from transportation to installation. If you import, the control begins only from the moment the container enters the warehouse. We will also be distributing our own products as we like to be responsible for everything — from our successes to any mistakes.

What do you offer hotels above and beyond expectations?
Professionalism – after having been in the hospitality business for a few years now, it’s evident that excuses run deep within the industry, with producers and distributors giving a number of reasons for not fulfilling customer needs. My offer to hotel and hospitality customers is to cut out these kinds of excuses.

what differentiates your company from others?
We have a highly equipped modern facility with an international team of professionals — this makes us stand out. For example, I can tell you that 70% of orders from hotels for items similar to those we provide are classified as “emergency orders” whereas in UK and Australia you will receive only 2-3% of such orders. In addition, we have invested in professional manufacturing equipment to guarantee consistency. And finally, our ability to tailor solutions and create products based on consumer requirements is an important USP.

Email:fm@fmuae.ae
Web: www.fmuae.ae

Article continues on next page ...