True luxury does not always come from Hermés, Louis Vuitton, Ferrari or Rolls-Royce. Sometimes the most exclusive delights simply come filled with pistachio cream and covered in crunchy chocolate.
A delicacy born in the desert. In 2021, the British-Egyptian living in Dubai, Sarah Hamouda, suffered one of those complicated pregnancies with her second daughter. Complicated not by medical problems, but by the cravings she had, which forced her husband to visit all the sweet shops in Dubai until he found the combination of flavors and textures that his pregnant partner craved. Such was the dissatisfaction at not finding a product that satisfied her cravings, that she decided to create it herself, as Hamouda herself confesses in the TikTiok profile of FIX Dessert Chocolatier, the company she founded to make it a reality.
In 2022, Hamouda began making his own chocolate bars by mixing flavors that reminded him of his childhood. This being Dubai, pistachio was a main ingredient in their recipes. “I wanted the FIX experience to be different. I wanted people, from the first bite, to relive moments from their past,” said the businesswoman in an interview with Arabian Business.
From local business to viral trend. At the end of 2023, Fix Dessert Chocolatier only had two employees and its business model was to survive on word of mouth and take care of the product. One fine day, the influencer gastronomic Maria Vehera, appeared in one of her videos trying a chocolate bar filled with pistachio cream with crunchy pieces of the nut that she presented as: Dubai Chocolate from FIX Dessert Chocolatier.
The video currently has more than 103 million views, Sarah Hamouda’s small local business now employs 20 employees and Dubai chocolate has become the new global forbidden pleasure. “It still seems like a dream to me, sometimes I pinch myself,” Hamouda confesses in his interview.
Local product at a golden Price. Fix Dessert Chocolatier is still a small local business, so the original product is only available in Dubai and in limited quantities, which has led to imitators emerging all over the world and many cooking influencers even teach how to prepare it in home.
Scarcity marketing has done its job by combining the scarcity of cocoa that plagues the global market with that of delicious pistachio-filled chocolate bars. That has turned this viral whim into a luxury that is sold at prices between 120 and 300 euros per kilo. That means that a single bar of this chocolate of just 100 grams can cost up to 30 euros. If it is made in a local artisan business, even more so.
Explosion of imitators around the world. As published FortuneAbu Khaled Sweets, a Berlin confectionery run by Ali Fakhro, is one of these small businesses that have seen an opportunity in the virality of Dubai Chocolate created by Hamouda, and make their own bars of this Arab delicacy. According to Fakhro, he had to experiment “several times and with different recipes until he found the right ingredient to achieve the creaminess and crunchy touch of the pistachio filling.” THE key was found in kanafeh, a traditional Arab dessert in which knafea kind of angel hair with which the desired consistency is obtained.
The popularity of the product has been such that even the Swiss chocolatier Lindt has launched its own version of Dubai chocolate. A 150 gram bar of this variant will cost about 16 euros. In its exclusive presentation in Germany with only 1,000 numbered bars. Customers queued for hours in the cold to get a bar of this chocolate.
Chocolate smuggling. The high demand and scarcity of these chocolate bars has created a “black market” for this chocolate, which is already entering as contraband through some borders. As published Fortunea 31-year-old man was detained at customs while trying to smuggle 45 kilograms of this candy from Switzerland to Germany.
The same media indicated that some of the customers who had waited for hours for the version created by Lindt to go on sale had the intention of reselling it to get some easy money. “I would never pay so much for this. It’s quick and easy money. This bar costs 15 euros, but it can be sold for almost 100 euros… There are many offers on eBay, up to 300 euros,” said one of the customers waiting to Buy his bar. chocolate.
The low-cost version (well played, Mercadona). The viral Dubai chocolate craze has also reached Spain. Some businesses specializing in Arabic pastries have created their own versions of the sweet, but large stores did not want to miss the opportunity to ride this viral wave to create their “lowcost” versions.
In just a few weeks, TikTok has been filled with videos of people trying what they call “Dubai Chocolate from Mercadona.” The trick is that it is nothing more than a chocolate nougat filled with pistachio. As my partner Matías would say, “not even Ozempic can save you from this.”
In WorldOfSoftware | Is the “chocapolalipsis” coming? What are the chances that we will run out of chocolate?
Image | CCNULL (Marco Verch)
