Selling Dutch sweets in Morocco

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stroopwafel11.jpg

After one Moroccan entrepreneur decided to make Gouda cheese in the Sahara, another Moroccan in Rotterdam is going to attempt making stroopwafels – also originally from the town of Gouda – and sell them in Morocco.

You’d think someone would have thought of this already, but according to businessman Mimoun el Arkoub, no one has. He explains that Moroccans love sweets and many of them know about Dutch food, so why not sell stroopwafels there? He bought himself two huge machines to produce the delights and is getting ready to crank them out and sell lots of them.

One major flop of pushing Dutch fare I have heard about in the past and seen on TV was convincing the Chinese to eat cheese. From what the Chinese, the Dutch people I know who have lived in China and others have said, the Chinese are not big on dairy products in general and have a problem with the smell of cheese. I mean, have you ever had cheese at a Chinese restaurant? The appeal of a huge market like China does not mean that if you just market real hard, they’ll start eating cheese. How many decades did it take the Dutch to drink wine? Think about it.

(Link: bizz.nl)

5 Comments »

  1. lola granola says:

    Gevulde koek or gevulde speculaas would probably appeal to the Moroccan palate, as Moroccan pastries (such as kab el ghzal and m’hanncha) are often filled with an orange-blossom-flavored-almond-paste that is very similar in taste and texture to the almandelspijs used in Dutch baked goods.

  2. Essaid Chaara says:

    hello :)

    heel goed en pragtig en echt slim idee denk ik :)
    i am called Essaid an am a new graduated Moroccan student major Business
    and i am living now in agadir city southern of Morocco . and i have gotten
    my dutch bachelor last year in business also from the hague university
    and decided to come in here to study one year master in sunny Agadir :).

    and i can tell u that the dutch businesses in region like Agadir or Casablanca
    an Mohamedia etc…r real BOOMING for sure :) speacially in Agadir region :)
    do u know that the percentage of dutch entreprises in agro transformation firms
    has moved from only 2 per cent 4 years ago to more than 25 percent :)..yeah :)
    these r facts an i can tell u that there r a lot of business opportunities to
    chase an tackle for sure :) u only need to get the right information from
    the right person of course :)!

    dont hesitate to contact me oke :)
    ik ga wachten voor uw reactie oke ;) ik spreek goed nederlands en engels an ook
    arabisch en frens en spaans en wat je wilt :)lool nee dit s alen wat ik weet :)
    ik ben 23 jaar oud by the way:)

    takasaid@gmail.com
    00 212 69 82 35 28

    essaid chaara :)
    doig en success in Marokko of anywhere !

  3. China does actually have local Cheeses, although mostly its from places like XinJiang – which are more arab than chinese. I’ve bought some excellent goat cheese and Yak cheeses up North in Xinjiang, or in XiZhang (North Sichuan close to Tibet).

    Most of the “good” cheese sold here does go to the expat market though, which is large enough in the big cities to warrant importing.

    Pizza hut is huge here too amongst the locals.

    Beemster was at one of the local expat shows here in Shanghai recently, and sold pretty well, although they didn’t have any distribution in the city, just concentrating on up north in Beijing.

    The smell shouldn’t really be an issue – there are local dishes with much worse nasal implications – eg Chou Doufu (Stinky Tofu).

    The main issues are that the Chinese aren’t really clear on what to do with cheese – its not something that they’re used to cooking or using. Sandwiches aren’t big here either, as most bread here is sweet, and not what we’re used to in the west.

    The other issue is that quite a lot of Chinese are lactose intolerant.

    Given the right marketing, and some examples of how to use Cheese in Chinese cooking (much like Peanut Butter is used here in a totally different way to the west), and I don’t see why Cheese wouldn’t do well.

  4. majid says:

    hi
    it is very good.

  5. حسین says:

    با سلام
    مرسی

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