Rou’a Saber’s chocolates are a sweet success

Years of living in France gave Rou’a Saber the scientific know-how and needed experience to be a professional and world-acclaimed hand-made chocolate maker.
She acquired a chocolate-maker certificate from Belgium after attending a 12-day master training course headed by a number of skilled trainers and attended by the Belgian Chocolate Ambassador. Saber said she was proud to be the only Saudi in the group.
She said she was not expecting the Belgians, the masters of chocolate making, to like her work. “I was really happy with the results of the course, especially after the Belgian Chocolate Ambassador praised my work in a famous paper in Belgium,” Saber said. The ambassador asked Saber about the secret of her tasty chocolates and predicted that she would have a bright future.
Saber’s passion for all things chocolate started when she was a little girl. “Unlike my peers, I was attracted to making different shapes of chocolates as opposed to eating them,” Saber told Arab News, adding that she learnt a lot about ingredients from the packages.
The family was supportive of their daughter’s hobby and enrolled her in a French academy for chocolate art when the family traveled to France. “I competed with many European students and I mostly won the first place in terms of flavor and product,” she said, adding that her excellence motivated her to start working back home.
She said she has always been proud to be a Saudi. She even told her chocolate-making colleagues about the support provided by the Kingdom to small and medium enterprises, “I want to be a Saudi then,” one chef told Saber jokingly if that would help him get financial support for his business.
Now, Saber can’t wait to open her business in the Kingdom after feeling confident of the quality of her products. Saudis are known for their love of chocolates and the Kingdom is one of the largest chocolate markets in the world, “When I visited international food fairs, I noticed the lack of Saudi producers, despite the country importing SR 500 million worth of chocolate every year,” she said, adding that much of the demand for chocolate can be met locally.
The uniqueness of Saber’s project is her reliance on hand-made chocolates. “I still don’t rely on any equipment and this requires extra time and effort,” she said, adding that many other enterprises in the Kingdom import chocolate from abroad and package them locally.
“What I like to produce is a mix of my taste and the customers’ tastes. I always like to come up with new fillings, flavors and shapes as well as provide services in a different way.”
With two workers only, Saber currently takes orders according to her capacity and not more. Other demands have to be postponed. Yet, this will soon change when she opens her chocolate factory in the space she reserved via the projects incubator of the Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Fund for Women Development.
Saber uses new technology to market her products, so she makes sure she is active on Instagram and Twitter. “These methods help spread the word out about my work and helps in making profits,” she said.
Saber said women’s investments help in solving the issue of unemployment and underline the Kingdom’s efforts to include women in the developmental process.
According to a recent economic report on unemployment levels, the Kingdom went down from 27th rank to 18th. She said the policies of the labor ministry have helped lower unemployments rates.
She said that more women are seeking new investment options.
“Working from home is usually a preliminary experience that allows women to know the highs and lows of the job,” Saber said.

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