Nathalie Haddad grew up in Abu Dhabi and, after studying nutrition and dietetics in Lebanon and Canada, returned to the UAE in 2001 to work as a dietician. In 2004, she launched Right Bite Nutrition and Catering Services which provides healthy, tailor-made meals to clients’ doorsteps. The 36-year-old mother-of-one, who lives in Dubai, now has a staff of 160 working for her.
6.30am
I have a daughter, Lea, who is 15 months old. We go for a walk around the house when she first wakes. Then I shower, change and drop her off at nursery at 8am. Three days a week I have a personal trainer at home. The days I don’t have training I go straight to the office; the other days I exercise, shower and change, then go to the office. I eat breakfast at home; either yogurt and cereal or wholemeal toast and peanut butter. When I was working as a dietician, I was counselling on healthy eating and there was demand from clients who said: “You want us to eat healthily but there is a lack of availability of healthy options.” This is when I started Right Bite.
9.30am
At the office I catch up on emails, then sit with my senior mangers – my operations manager, my project manger, my accountant, my HR manager, my customer service manager and my executive chef – and go though what we have going on that day and that week. We’ve got two main businesses: one is our personalised meal service and the other is Nathalie’s, which is the cafe and catering concept. We are constantly developing the menu, looking at costing, looking at new products. We opened the first Nathalie’s two years ago in Abu Dhabi and are expanding to Dubai Sports City in early January; we are currently looking at everything from branding to tablewear to staffing and training.
12.30pm
I pick up my daughter from nursery, go home and have lunch with her. She naps for a good two hours while I go back to the office. I’m lucky because it’s only a five to 10-minute drive. I have more internal meetings or do my own work such as sit with the lawyer and go through legal contracts. From a business point of view, I learnt as I went along and I am still learning. I started the business without even having a business plan. I made mistakes, I can’t say I didn’t. I was always juggling between counselling and managing the business.
3pm
I go back home and spend time with my daughter. So it’s either play dates or taking her out somewhere or going out to the park. Until I had my daughter I used to counsel clients and manage the business. But since I had her I have given up counselling because I didn’t want to fall short in something and I didn’t want my daughter to suffer. When I was counselling, I had direct contact with the clients; I was able to hear what they wanted and my business delivered on that. But I still have a good sense of what they want, and the customer service team and the dieticians keep us up to date. We’ve started opening little hubs for Right Bite where it’s good food fast. So you call up and we have a set menu of our favourite items and we will deliver. We are opening the first hub in Jumeirah Lakes Towers in Dubai in December and hopefully we’ll develop on that. We are always growing, learning, trying to see what’s out there. Competition is good. Healthy meals delivery becomes like another restaurant; people try you and shop around and if they come back that’s great.
7pm
It’s shower and bedtime for Lea and then I cook her meals for the next day. If I have something with my husband, we go out for dinner. If not, we have dinner at home by 8pm. Now that the weather is good, we then go to Jumeirah Beach Residence and talk a walk along the track or along the beach.
11pm
By 10.30pm I am knocked out. I can’t believe now it’s been 10 years since I launched my business. I expect the next 10 years to be just as fast and hopefully we will have a lot of growth and development internally and externally. We have people who have been with us for years who have changed their lifestyle considerably: they’ve lost weight, they feel better, they are controlling their diabetes or cholesterol, or having a healthy pregnancy. That’s what’s very rewarding for me on a personal level.
business@thenational.ae
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