The Business
up the kids and after that there was family time. When the kids would go to bed, I would make the salads that were ordered, then I’d get up early the next day and deliver all of them.” It was January 2014 when Sallam started out making salads from home, and by May of the same year she had moved into a commercial space in Al Quoz with a kitchen manager, a salad creator and a driver. At that point, the team was creating around 25 salads per day.
In addition to the challenges with getting approvals for the space and securing the trade license, starting a business during the slow summer months and Ramadan wasn’t easy, however it did allow the team some time for trial and error before peak season hit in the autumn. “The summer gave us an opportunity to grow at a pace we were comfortable with so that when everyone came back in September we were ready. When September came, we started to get really busy
and I think we were up to 80 or 90.” Choosing to operate deliveries using an app-based system was another aspect of Sallam’s careful strategy to ensure that the small business could operate efficiently and ramp up at a manageable pace. “We’re not a call-on-demand company,” says Sallam. “We are an app-based company where you pick your time-slot. We had to do it that way to get the most out of our drivers.” Each driver is assigned a particular area and in a 1.5-hour time slot in which around eight to 10 stops can be made – the equivalent of eight to 20 salads, since most orders are for more than one salad. By December, more staff had joined the team and there was a total of four drivers and three kitchen staff. While Sallam was busy doing everything front-of-house and looking after logistics, Lorenzo the kitchen manager was dealing with the vendors, most of whom had been chosen by Sallam during the research phase. “I used to live on JBR,” she explains. “I would walk my baby at 5am and would watch deliveries being made and see which ones I thought were delivering properly. I hand-picked who I wanted to work with and went on tours of their spaces because I wanted to see where the produce was coming from and how it got there. When I met Lorenzo, I said ‘these are the vendors I want to work with – make it happen’.” Driving loyalty is key to the business model and Sallam prides herself in maintaining an affordable price point while offering various loyalty incentives. The March 2017 Catering NEWS ME
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