Interview: Nathalie Haddad

Nathalie Haddad was a pioneer in the UAE healthy meal delivery market when she founded her company, Right Bite, in 2004. Since then, the nutritional consultation and meal delivery service has helped its clients lose an average of 250,000 kg excess weight, she tells Caterer Middle East. And these are just the people who subscribe to Right Bite’s customised meal plan packages — this figure doesn’t take into account the customers who use the delivery arm of the company, Right Bite Express.

Now in its 13th year of operations, Haddad’s company won region-wide recognition a few months ago when Right Bite took home the trophy for SME of the Year at the StartUp Awards 2016, hosted by sister title Arabian Business. Among the reasons Right Bite was crowned the winner was the company’s continued progress toward long-term sustainability.

“It was very rewarding to be recognised by an external party. And what was the most touching for me personally was the fact that they said Right Bite had become a household name,” she shares. “That’s what resonated with us and gave us satisfaction — to know that Right Bite touches people’s lives on a day-today basis, because that is what we try to do.”

Helping people, specificially helping them to live healthier lives, is a topic Haddad comes back to several times during our interview. It was this side of the business, rather than a burning desire to work in hospitality, that motivated her to launch Right Bite.

Haddad, who is Lebanese and grew up in Abu Dhabi, completed her undergraduate studies at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon with a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition and Dietetics and then continued her training at McGill University, in Canada, where she obtained a Master’s of Science degree in Nutrition.

“I have always been interested in the medical field and the health industry — doing something related to health,” she reveals. “Nutrition touches people’s lives every day and a lot of the medical issues are controlled and prevented through what you eat, such as diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure and types of cancer. Taking care of your body — inside and out — helps people prevent many problems.”

When she founded Right Bite she was working as a dietician, advising individuals on what and how to eat. The idea to start catering to people like her clients grew organically from there.

“There was demand — people were telling me that they had busy lives, that they were on the go the whole time, and the availability of healthy food was limited at the time. So, this is how I started Right Bite; general growth from the demand from my clients to have such a service to complement the nutritional education and counselling that I provided.”

Initially, she says she “outsourced everything” but quickly realised that without a central kitchen, she couldn't meet her own exacting standards.

“Outsourcing meant fewer overheads but you don’t have 100% control over product quality, so we moved into a central kitchen [in Al Quoz] soon after, allowing us to prepare everything from scratch. We bake our own bread and make all our own desserts. We don’t have anything processed and we make sure everything is prepared fresh with locally sourced natural ingredients. Having the central kitchen means you have control over everything that you do.”

Since the beginning, the company's core business has remained the same: nutritional counselling followed by personalised meal plans. Haddad says changing lifestyles and eating habits prompted a new business avenue — on-demand delivery service Right Bite Express.

“Some people don’t want to have the commitment of taking on a personalised package, so they have the option to order something healthy [when they want it] and have that delivered to them. We have clients who go back and forth between Right Bite Express and the personalised meal plans.”

Speaking about the different programmes that she and her team of dieticians formulated, she says she created Renew You for “general healthy eating and weight loss if you have no severe medical conditions”, Balanced Mom for pregnant women, Fuel Up for athletes, and Selective Plus for people with intolerances or allergies. Mighty Lunchables provides school lunches, and then there is the Right Bite Cleanse, and Low-Carb.

“Clients usually sign up for an average of three months. We also have clients who have been with us for longer periods of time, switching from the full package (breakfast, lunch, two snacks and dinner) to an ‘AM package’ (breakfast, lunch and two snacks) from Sunday to Thursday, so while they are at work they don’t have to worry about what they eat,” the entrepreneur explains.

In terms of its customer base, like many UAE-based F&B companies, Right Bite caters to a diverse range of nationalities.

“People come to us primarily to help them reverse health and weight issues as well as the the convenience of eating healthy. We have 50% Arabs/locals, 30% expats and 20% Asians. We are always working on developing new items and our menu options are varied across different cuisines,” she says.

“We continuously do menu developments; every week we do tastings, evaluate the menu and look at the feedback from customers. We are always looking at all the programmes, the offers that we give, market trends and customer feedback. And we go on the programme ourselves quite regularly to evaluate the food as well as the service,” she adds.

Constantly evolving Right Bite’s offering is a necessity given how competitive the healthy food market is in a region full of expats who work long hours, and have more disposable income than they would have in their home countries. Several players that cater specifically to regional customers who are health conscious have entered both the meal plan and on-demand field in the past decade.

“The healthy F&B business has become a significant segment within the F&B industry; it is like a restaurant in that people shop around but, just like with restaurants, they tend to stick with where they’re happy with the food and service. So, we are trying to provide a food and service that keeps customers coming back.

“There is competition but competition is good; I don’t think you can ever sit back and say ‘okay, I have reached a certain point and that’s it’. It’s important to always stay on top of the business and at the top of your game. We are always improving everything we do.”

She describes the process of growing the business as being “challenging but in a positive way”.

Elaborating on this, she shares: “It keeps you on your toes. For me, [that means] always focusing on the business, the customers, the products and the experience. Working hard to achieve something I would be happy and proud of, and that I would be happy to feed my family and friends. So, there hasn’t been one big challenge — every day we face little challenges that we try to overcome.

“With the economic situation [the way that it is at the moment], people are more price conscious. They are becoming more demanding as customers, but rightfully so. We need to make sure we give them value for money and that there is added value in the service that we provide.”

She summarises that maintaining cost without comprising quality or service is the main challenge Right Bite faces today.

Retaining customers is a challenge for virtually any business and part of making sure customers are happy usually means keeping pace with the latest trends. That is certainly true of the regional F&B industry, which keeps a close eye on global eating and drinking habits.

Much like the way Haddad started her business nearly a decade-and-a-half ago, developing in this respect is a a fairly organic process, she reveals: “There are a lot of trends, and we always improve and adjust as per trends, but we have to make sure it is based on science and not a fad. We only adjust our meal plans in line with scientific facts, healthy eating and benefits to your overall health,” she tells Caterer.

With thoughts turning to what she has planned for her company this year — and her other business, a café called Nathalie’s in Dubai Sports City — she says 2017 is about about perfecting the product and growing in current business areas.

She adds: “Above all, our main focus is on educating people about our products, being transparent, and enabling people to learn and be empowered with knowing what they are putting into their bodies.”

As part of this, Haddad launched Skype consultations to give people who want to see a dietician but don’t want to travel to the Right Bite Nutition Centre in Jumeirah.

“This has proven very effective to a lot of people, especially where time is of the essence. And we have clients who aren’t in Dubai, so we just give them nutritional information rather than the food. We also have clients in Sharjah who don’t want to come here but we deliver [food] to them, and to Abu Dhabi,” she explains, adding that expanding the areas for delivery will wait another two to three years.

In terms of advice for entrepreneurs considering following in her footsteps, Haddad shares: “It sounds corny but do what you love and love what you do. Work hard and focus on the little things because the little things make a difference in the bigger scheme of things.”