Entrepreneurship is second nature to the Syrian Nour Tarsha. Even as the recent unrest in Syria almost wiped out his two businesses back home, the serial entrepreneur persevered in his adopted city of Abu Dhabi.
As general operations manager for an oil and gas company for 12 years, he has always had business interests in the emirate. Then late last year, he exited his investment in a salon, and opened a Belgian chocolate shop this summer.
And it’s more than just chocolate. Via Dolce also trades in hand-painted crystalware and silver products. “A luxury city like Abu Dhabi needed quality chocolates,” says Mr Tarsha, 37, who is one of an increasing number of entrepreneurs attracted by opportunities in the capital’s fine chocolate segment.
Several boutiques and mom-and-pop stores have opened recently as the local population develops a taste for luxury chocolate.
“The time is now,” Mr Tarsha says. “Abu Dhabi is getting into the luxury [sector], most brands are here, it’s the future city; the buying power of the people will also rise.”
Even coffee-exporting countries such as Ecuador are trying to tap into the trend.
“The business of fine chocolates is profitable and demand is widespread across gender, age and nationalities in this region,” according to Hussam Hassan, the head of the Ecuadorean commercial office in Dubai.
Last month the trade promotion organisation of Ecuador held a business matchmaking session in Quito with UAE enterprises to boost coffee trade.
For Mr Tarsha, chocolate is a new line of trade.
The Syrian entrepreneur first came to the UAE 15 years ago as a civil engineer and still works in an Abu Dhabi company with interests in construction, plant equipment, transportation and accommodation services for the oil industry. But Mr Tarsha also enjoys having entrepreneurial ventures on the side of his regular job.
In 2007 he entered the telecoms sector in Syria and launched a plastics factory in Aleppo. However, Syria’s recent wave of violence has damaged the plastics factory and it is no longer operational. The telecoms business Syriana, which is involved in hardware and software programming for phones for corporates and is a supplier of phone accessories, is still trudging along with three employees.
Mr Tarsha is now focusing on his partnership in Via Dolce, the parent company that manufactures and exports the chocolates to Abu Dhabi from Belgium. He markets 74 types of organic and regular Belgian varieties, including exotic options such as chilli dark chocolate, salted caramel and Earl Grey dark. The prices range from Dh275 per kilogram for the organic variety to Dh175 per kg for the regular chocolates.
It takes up to two weeks for chocolate shipments to reach Abu Dhabi from Belgium, but the store has a stock for quick deliveries. These are wrapped in the Abu Dhabi workshop for corporate gifts, birthdays and weddings.
“In Europe you have to sell chocolates individually and packaging is not important,” Mr Tarsha says. “Here, since it is a hot country packaging is important.”
The shop, which opened in July, has received four corporate orders so far and offers up to 15 per cent off larger orders, depending on the amount and delivery time.
In a year’s time, he expects 30 per cent of the clientele to come from the corporate sector, with the rest from retail.
The Via Dolce parent company started in 2000 in Abu Dhabi as a wholesaler of Belgian chocolates and home-made jam that are also supplied in Europe. The Abu Dhabi store, which employs five staff, is the first retail outlet.
Mr Tarsha has invested almost Dh1 million in the Abu Dhabi outlet and says it will take about two years to break even. Another store in an Abu Dhabi mall is on the cards and there are plans to sell ice-cream and Belgian waffles from that outlet.
There will be a maximum of three stores in the capital, to retain the quality, according to Mr Tarsha.
While the entrepreneur also recognises Dubai as a lucrative market, he says the target audience would be different there, catering to the tastes and preferences of tourists.
Any expansion outside the country would be through franchises.
For now, however, Mr Tarsha says he wants to secure the Abu Dhabi market before expanding the Via Dolce footprint farther afield.
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