A sweet Qatari venture: Jaddah and Granny

Jaddah and Granny is a family-owned business in Qatar, started by two siblings — Hamad and Maryam Al Bader.

Hamad, Co-Founder and CEO of the establishment, works perfectly in tandem with Maryam, who is the company’s Co-Founder and Chef.

They specialise in authentic homemade desserts, bringing local and western dessert recipes together and presenting them with an original and unique touch. All their products are hand mixed and created to ensure authentic taste.

Qatar Living sat down with them for a quick chat. Here are excerpts of the interview.

Tell us more about your business. What inspired you to get started in the first place?

Hamad: We were fortunate to live in an extended family. We experienced first hand the warmth of our grandmothers and their generosity towards guests during weekly social gatherings. Desserts were always among the offerings. While our mother made some of it, their friends brought the rest. Our mom transferred her passion of dessert making to Maryam.

Soon, I started noticing how after eating our desserts, family and friends would tell us how scrumptious they were. I also remembered the many times my mom and Maryam would make special desserts at their relatives’ and friends’ requests.

Driven by our belief that the best way to enjoy life is to do something you are passionate about, Jaddah and Granny was born in 2014.

How do you operate?

We started operating from our home for the first two years and now, we are moving to our own villa. We own a virtual store on the internet — www.jaddahandgranny.com

What challenges did you initially face while setting up the business?

We’ve always thrived on challenges. We had a lot of fun coming up with a viable business idea and model, developing a long-term vision, assembling a business team and leveraging on our team’s strengths, promoting and executing our marketing plan and understanding our customers’ true needs.

What changes do you wish to see in the system?

We wish to see government appreciate home businesses by giving them ratings and accreditation based on objective criteria.

What’s the most exciting part of Jaddah and Granny?

The most exciting part is surely sharing our authentic recipes with customers and seeing how they have enjoyed it. The everyday joy of baking, seeing returning customers, getting repeat orders, seeing the entire family work together as a single unit… that’s the joy of this business.

What is the story behind the name Jaddah and Granny? It is quite unique…

After several trials and errors and exploring many ideas, the name Jaddah and Granny stuck. Our desserts are inspired by both Qatari and Western cuisines, run by women since olden times. The name of the business symbolises women who gave us this unique heritage.

At the moment, it is difficult for people to identify the value proposition of our brand with just our name. But with creativity and some help from branding experts, we will try hard to make it easier to communicate the essence of our brand.

How do you market your brand and what do you think is the best channel?

We are making the most of social media presence. We are active on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. From experience, I feel the best channels to market our products are Instagram and Facebook.

We also started selling our products in the local community via exhibitions. We received invitations from local entities supporting small businesses in Qatar such as Social Development Center (SDC), Bedaya Center and Qatar Development Bank.

How do you come up with unique recipes?

Most of our recipes come to us late at night. When things get quiet, Maryam listens to melodies and starts experimenting by herself in the kitchen. We usually try our recipes with family and friends before sharing it with the community.

Baking is both an art and a science. New recipes require elaborate efforts, experimentations and failures. Each chef has her/his own essence.

Do you also offer healthy options?

At the moment, we are selling our goods to those who appreciate the joys of a delicious dessert, without overriding their calorie intake. We are aware of the diet trend and are working hard to enhance some of our existing recipes to be healthy options as well.

What about your prices? Are they pocket-friendly?

We sell a dozen goodie jars for QR250. We justify the prices with the authenticity of our recipes and high quality of our sourced ingredients that are reflected in the remarkable taste. As we are selling to niche customers, we seldom get complains about pricing.

Here is a little story. One day, one of our returning customers commented about our higher-range prices. We spoke to her about the reasoning behind the pricing and she agreed with us. She went on to try several other options in the market, but kept returning to us. She said she was convinced of the quality, authentic taste and branding of Jaddah and Granny.

To order Jaddah and Granny’s mouth-watering desserts, visit www.jaddahandgranny.com or call 66665974 for WhatsApp orders.

You can also follow their deliciousness on Instagram @jaddahandgranny