“We went off track over time but we have come back to the core of what we set out to do, which is a small footprint of high-quality products for busy people,” he reveals.
“The way we look at our business is that we provide food for people on the go, who don’t have time to cook and don’t want to eat fast food; they want something healthy that is value for money. We always locate our brand in areas where we feel we can serve consumers who want and need this. Business Bay is one of them, filled with restaurant-taste clientele,” he asserts.
Croft points out that this location is also ideal for providing deliveries — “we’re focusing a lot on people being able to call and for us to deliver a healthy, fast solution” — and that they want to go a step further than providing healthy options by catering to people with food intolerances and a desire to eat organic.
Discussing consumer demand for these types of products, Croft says: “So many people want to be gluten-free, and more people are going vegan, so we’re introducing a vegan range and a lot of raw items, such as our new raw carrot cake.”
She adds that she tries to source locally and organically where possible, reporting that this is easiest when it comes to vegetables and herbs. When asked about suppliers, she reveals: “I would love to tell you that we use free-range organic chicken but the reality is I would have to triple the price of the chicken we sell.We can do that for some small amounts, so for example our egg mayonnaise is made using free-range organic eggs, but we haven’t got to that level yet with our chicken.”
Al Jayouchi adds that sourcing organically is not as difficult as it used to be 10 years ago when there were far fewer suppliers operating in Dubai in general, and says he sees suppliers’ costs coming down slightly in this respect.
“When we started I was not sure the organic drive was going to last and I was more resistant to it than other trends because of the associated costs. It’s usually two or three times the cost of non-organic, but those prices will come down as competition grows. Farmers are becoming more aware that this is an interesting element to supply,” he shares.
He believes the concept of eating healthily has evolved into specialities for which there “is good demand”, such as gluten-free, vegan, raw and carb-free, as part of a consumer shift. “I see less alcohol being consumed by the younger generation and they care more about what they eat, in terms of how natural it is. I think that is driving the market; this is their era and we have to cater to that,” he says.
Clarifying how F&B purveyors can interpret what it means to offer healthy options, Al Jayouchi comments: “There is healthy food as in diet and healthy as in pure; we are more into the pure, clean food rather than claiming that if you eat our food you are going to lose weight. Natural food is healthy food by default and that’s where we are trying to focus.”
Croft agrees, adding that it is this type of cuisine that is incredibly popular in Dubai. Sharing her thoughts on the topic, she says: “The Dubai food scene is very competitive and it’s evolving. Dubai is beginning to get more home-grown concepts and it’s almost getting back to basics, with the food truck revolution.
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