Inspirational Nouf Almutawa Shares the Success Story of Kuwait’s Chocolate Bar, Which is Set to Open Its 7th Branch

Interview with Nouf Almutawa, Founder of Chocolate Bar (Bon Group)

You are soon to become the President of the Entrepreneurs Organisation (EO) of Kuwait. What is the story behind Bon Group and The Chocolate Bar? How did such a young Kuwaiti woman become such a success story?

Bon Group is the company which owns Chocolate Bar. Chocolate Bar is a café that serves all kinds of chocolate drinks and chocolate desserts. Everything is made fresh every day. It came out of a passion of mine and of my partner’s; we are both females and we both love chocolate! Who doesn’t love chocolate?! We thought that we wanted to spread that passion and love of chocolate to everybody. That is where the idea for Chocolate Bar came from. These are items that we were making at home for our friends and families and we thought “Let’s take it to the next level and provide these same indulgent habits, menus and foods that make everyone happy to the public.” The idea behind Chocolate Bar is that you leave here happier than when you entered. It is our happy hour in Kuwait!

When did you start and how many branches are you opening?

We started in 2004. We had our first branch in Marina Crescent and it was such a hit and a success. We started with a small store because the idea was that we wanted to start small but think big. We didn’t want to get in over our heads; we wanted to test the market. Again, it was something new, it was a challenge for us, it came out of a passion, but it was not something we have a background in; we are not chefs and we are not trained cooks. As true entrepreneurs, we thought “Let´s test it out and take a leap of faith on it.” I guess the idea is to challenge yourself and do something out of your comfort zone and that is what we wanted to do. We tested the market with a small branch and it did so well that two years later we opened our second store and now, twelve years later we have 6 stores. We are soon opening our 7th branch which we are excited about.

How do you fit into the Food and Beverage landscape in Kuwait? Where do you come in?

We consider ourselves pioneers in terms of being two Kuwaiti females starting their own business at a time when it was mainly franchises done by huge corporations. We broke that trend. It was a challenge to do that at the beginning but we broke the trend and I think that it helped a lot of people aspire to and end up starting their own business because they realised that if they have a dream and a passion, it can be done. I think in the past twelve years that we have been in the market; we have developed a lot of loyalty with the Kuwaiti people because they grew up with us so we have a lot of customers who were kids when we first started and are now teenagers and teenagers who are now adults and adults who are now older adults! Who doesn’t like chocolate?! I love hearing their stories when they say that they have so many good memories of Chocolate Bar and that they grew up with Chocolate Bar, that they remember the first one we opened, they remember the second one… I love that every single store has a story with some of the people here and it gives you a nice connection between every location and the local people here. I love that.

Kuwait is running different initiatives when it comes to health awareness and diets etc. What do you do in this regard?

There are two ways of looking at it. This is a happy hour! You can diet and train all week but this is the time where you can be human and enjoy life a little. We are all human we need to enjoy life. However, we do provide a lot of healthy snacks, good salads, and healthy sandwiches. We have our fondue where you can have dark chocolate with fruits for example if you are on a diet. It is a small cheat!

We are also aware that some people have medical issues so people are diabetic, or people can’t have gluten etc. so we are in the process of working on coming up with gluten free options, and we are hopefully getting sugar free chocolate so that we can develop a few sugar free dessert options mainly for diabetic people to make them happy. We also have dairy free options; we use alternatives in that sense. It comes down to supply and demand. People associate us with their happy hour. There are plenty of healthy options available for people who want that, but we can’t satisfy every single person.

You said you are opening the 7th branch. What is next for the Chocolate Bar? What is your strategy? Do you want to expand into the Middle East?

Locally, we are about to open our 7th branch and we also have a bakery coming up. Internationally or outside of Kuwait, we are looking at the idea of franchising; we are in the process of developing our franchising documents. We are in the process of coming up with our own manuals and getting everything set up with our law firms. Once that is done, we already have our name registered almost all over the world, so once we have all of our documents ready, we will start. We are in the process of branding our own chocolate which is a very important step as well. Once we have all of that, we will be 100% ready for franchising.

When do you think that will be?

We hope by 2018 at the latest. Basically we just need to have all of these steps done first. We need the chocolate branding, the documents ready and we want to get all of our staff ready. Once we say we are ready we want to be 100% ready.

Can you tell us about the bakery project?

We make a lot of special cakes, freshly baked. We do birthday cakes every single day but we don’t heavily promote it. It is done by word of mouth. People come here all the time wanting cakes but we are a café at the end of the day. Our kitchens are equipped to service the café itself and we don’t want to mix the two. The bakery will be for all the people who want to take something home or are invited somewhere and want to take something special or for a special birthday. It will be a place where you can pass by and have freshly baked cakes ready for you, and freshly baked cookies. We will have a small bar with a few sandwiches and coffee to go. It will be almost like an express Chocolate Bar but more catered to our baked goods as opposed to all of our desserts that are offered here. That is the idea behind it.

Where are you opening it?

It is going to be in Salmiya; in an area where you can pass by and pick up your baked goods because it is right by our central kitchen so everything will be fresh and any special orders will be done right away.

If everything goes well, what is your ambition for the medium term? In two or three years how do you see Chocolate Bar?

Our aim for the next few years is definitely to have Chocolate Bar open up outside of Kuwait. I think this is something that we are striving for right now and we are looking forward to it. Our other aim is to have a few more branches locally because I think Kuwait can still handle some more in some strategic locations. Internationally we want to franchise and we want to open our own stores as well. It will be a combination of our own and some franchises. We look forward to growing the Chocolate Bar name.

What message would you have for any starting up entrepreneurs, especially Kuwaiti females? What advice do you have for them?

Follow your dream, follow your passion and don’t give up! Be unique and do what you think is best. Don’t follow the trend setters, find something that you love and are good at and do it. Don’t let being a female stop you. It is all about being female now, we are the strength! I think you can do it! Yes, we can!

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