5 SHADES OF CEREAL
Your breakfast passion, reignited your way by bazaar staff
That moment when you are standing in front of the cereal aisle trying to pick from the few dozen types that line the aisle. The child in you yearns for processed brands with cartoon characters on a sugar high that bounce around the front of the box. Yet, the adult in you tells you that even though all that bran and wheat are not titillating, they are good for you and the better choice. Enter 5STRIPES, a new locally created cereal brand that unleashes your potential to create the perfect blend of what the founders call “ceriously tasty cereal”, and gives you back those lost moments in the supermarket. “We want to prove to people that healthy is tasty,” said co-founder Dr. Abdullah Al Ali. “We really invested in the ingredients, and you can customize your own cereal to get the nutritional value that you need, without compromising the taste.” It all started when Mishaal Al Duwaila, an entrepreneur in the organic food market, and Abdullah Fakhra, wanted to bring healthy snacks made with premium ingredients to Kuwait. Al 94
Duwaila had been importing organic foods from the Czech Republic to Kuwait. Yet, the idea with Fakhra evolved to more than just importing an end product. Over almost eighteen months they visited more than 30 suppliers in Germany, Holland and the Czech Republic. The whole time they collected grains, freeze dried fruits and other samples from around Europe. “We were looking for quality and taste,” said Al Duwaila, also known as ‘The Hawk’ in the team for his detailed inspection of every tube that leaves their facility. “We wanted organic and we wanted something that tasted very good as well as looked good.” They teamed up with childhood friends Dr. Abdullah Al Ali, who practices family medicine, and Abdullah Al Muthaf, a local restaurant entrepreneur. The group set out to create a brand that enriched people’s lives as a whole, and the concept 5STRIPES was born. Their fifth partner? A rotating partner they will team up with, from local nutrionists, to artists, to other local businesses,
and you, the customer. All with a base of five core values, the stripes: creative, organic, socially responsible, healthy and above all, tasty. “The whole thing is based on customization,” said Al Muthaf. “You can basically customize your own cereal to get the nutritional value that you need, and get the most compatible cereal for whatever lifestyle you have.” Creativity may have started with the creation of this brand, but it happens every day on the 5STRIPES website. Simply log on and pick from one of seven bases including honey puffs, chocolate puff boons, and oat flakes. The site automatically fills your 550 gram tube with that base. From there, it’s time to get creative. Add grains like rye flakes or barley flakes. If you went with a bland base, try something sweeter like the chocolate crunchy flakes. Go crazy on nuts and seeds with everything from the tiny chia seed to the bazaar favorite, the cashew nut. Then, the fun parts: lyophillized fruits and extras. “We are really proud of our fruits,” said Al