What happens when “a construction guy” and a former hotelier get together to launch a new F&B concept? Most people’s first guess perhaps would not be a dessert-only bakery and especially not one wholly built around a delivery-only model.
The idea seems quite whimsical at first, but when Caterer Middle East quizzed co-founder Raki Phillips it became clear that he had done his homework.
“We narrowed our plan down to a dessert franchise and we flew to New York, met with a donut company and realised it was not the right fit for Dubai, or for us," he explains, referring to himself and his co-founder Jawad Yehia.
Undeterred, the pair — who have been friends since university — came up with their own concept, with Phillips remarking: “It was the best thing we could have done because we got to create something from scratch.”
So, what attracted them to the dessert sector in particular? “It’s less competitive, you can be very creative with desserts and the profit margins on desserts are high,” he responds. The latter is because, for one, the shelf life is longer.
“You can bake a cake, eat it three days later and it will still taste good — unlike with rotisserie chicken or a shawarma, for example,” he explains.
Given the Middle East’s sweet tooth, entering the dessert market here must have seemed like a safe bet — with the right angle at least. “We looked at the [dessert] market in Dubai and thought, you either have cupcakes or Arabic sweets — and we wanted to be an anti-cupcake establishment. We realised the delivery market in Dubai is a US $750m business per annum, of which desserts were non-existent, Phillips reveals.
After coming up with the initial idea, Phillips and Yehia spent about four months on R&D, looking at the best way for them to deliver desserts and what the right products would be, so that they could successfully “deliver to you right upon your craving,” as he puts it, leading to the creation of “Dubai’s first online dessert delivery business”.
The name, SugarMoo, suitably quirky for such a business, represents the two most common ingredients for desserts — sugar and milk. In keeping with that train of thought, the company prefers to keep its ingredients list full with familiar names, choosing to go down the natural route for all its dessert offerings.
“We only use natural ingredients, and we don’t use any sweeteners or chemicals. As much as possible we get our supplies locally and we work with local farmers,” he tells Caterer Middle East.
Although a business founded on satisfying cravings is unashamedly focused on indulgence, Phillips says SugarMoo strives to tick all the consumer demand boxes through the formation of its healthier line.
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