Food and beverage is among the industries who have been hit hard by the war — whether from the demand angle, with many high-end restaurants seeing lower footfall given the lack of tourists and the generally more cautious environment, or from the cost angle, with shipping, logistics, and ins. all seeing costs rise.

One premium protein business owner, `gainst the odds, managed to close an AED 45 mn investment from Emirates Growth Fund — and dodge most of the potential repercussions of the disruptions, keeping shelves stocked and prices stable.

Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. This week, we sat down with Fikry Boutros, (LinkedIn) a self-proclaimed meat enthusiast and co-founder and co-CEO of Carnistore, to discuss the behind-the-scenes of the investment, his morning routine, and how the business is navigating current ongoing headwinds. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

EnterpriseAM: First, tell me about CarniStore. When and why did you decide to start an online butchery business?

Fikry Boutros: I’ve worked in engineering and construction for 18 years, but I always had a thing for F&B. I’ve always loved meat [in particular], and I couldn’t find the cuts and the service that I wanted here. There was only one place where you could get premium meats back then. I was doing my MBA around 2013 and my thesis was to open a butchery shop in Dubai. I went to the UK and took a butchery course, and worked on my idea.

I met Dan — my co-founder and business partner — by chance at a common friend’s kid’s birthday party, and we were both working on similar concepts. We both had partners back then, but after some time, we both parted ways with our partners, and got to talking and decided to work together. It’s really interesting now in hindsight, because if we had done it alone, it would’ve been completely different. We each bring different angles to the business that truly make it what it is.

We took a distressed asset, fixed it up, and decided to go fully online so it’s cost-efficient, and we focused on how we create the brand and how to market it online. We were learning everything on the job. But it was going well — we were getting around 10-15 orders a day.

Then COVID happened. Everyone was stuck at home, so it just blew up overnight. We had to cap orders because we couldn’t fulfill them fast enough and we couldn’t get product. We were hustling to find enough butchers and started building our team. This all happened within a week, and we ended up growing 4x.

E: So what’s the scale of operations today?

FB: We currently have one location in Alserkal Avenue. That’s our central operation. We have offsite storage, but in Alserkal we have small storage for about one to two days of consumption. The team is now around 70 people, and we have a database of 65k customers.

We have a B2C and a B2B arm, where we work with a lot of hotels, restaurants, and cafes across Dubai. We supply, we curate blends for them, we come up with ideas, and we even support them with menu engineering. That arm accounts for around 30% of the business.

E: How have you guys navigated the supply chain disruptions and heightened costs over the past month since the war started?

FB:We saw lots of panic buying the first 10 days, very similar to Covid-19 days. The difference is that we have the capacity this time. The good thing is that we get most of our supply via air freight, which was not hit as bad as sea freight.

Thankfully, we have a good relationship with our suppliers, and even other industry players; we all support each other. Some competitors were stuck with things for hotels, especially products that are chilled and cost a lot to keep in storage. Thankfully we were not as disrupted as others and we're still getting shipments by air and clearing them. Last week, we got three with no issues, specifically from Europe, and no hiked prices. From Australia, I think shipping costs are going up a little bit, maybe around 30%.

We’re trying as much as possible to absorb any rising costs and keep prices as they are, despite prices rising across things like fuel and raw materials.

Realistically, even when things go back to normal, we won’t see pricing go back to normal for at least between three to six months, especially between shortage in supply in the energy sector and shipping, it’s going to take time to normalize.

E: It’s a good time to have some fresh funding in your war chest. Tell us about the investment from Emirates Growth Fund.

FB: This has been in the works for six months. We had an initial small pre-seed round earlier, and we had great partners who helped us move and scale up. They started introducing us to people when we started thinking of expanding and, so we started sending out our decks, but we weren’t under pressure or in any sort of distress so we didn’t have a deadline. We’re thankfully EBITDA positive.

We met Emirates Growth Fund, and there was really good chemistry. We ended up signing the Head of Terms agreement in December, and then it was mainly just due diligence and regulatory procedures. When the war started, we gave them a call just to make sure they know we understand if there’s delays or if they need to hold off on the investment for now given the current environment, but they were very supportive and said, on the contrary, this is a homegrown business and we believe in the UAE economy — let’s close.

We had a plan for the funding, of course. The plan remains the same, but some things might change if market dynamics change. We’re very careful with how we spend — maybe because we came from humble beginnings — so we won’t be pausing, but we’re watching the market for opportunities that could help us have a quicker impact faster.

E: Now, onto your morning routine. What’s that like?

FB: I wake up early, I work out, and then I go to work, but I’m not a very big morning person. But I do start my day early — I learned this the hard way when I was in construction, because you need to wake up at 5-6am.

We have lunch together, every day — the whole team. We try to make the office somewhere fun, so not very corporate. Then I go back home, have dinner with the family, and then watch some Netflix and sleep, unless I’m out having dinner. In F&B, we do a lot of collaborations and we’re very close as a community. Even if we don’t work together, we connect over our love for food.

E: What’s a piece of advice you’ve received at some point in your career that has stuck with you?

FB: It's a lesson I learned from my mentor, who passed away a few years back, and who really had a strong influence in my life. I learned from him that you can’t give up or stop trying unless you exhaust every single possibility.

The other thing I’ve learned over time is that people and relationships should always come first. All the rest follows. I think partnerships are what really establish solid organic growth.

Fikry’s recommendations

Favorite restaurants: It’s very difficult to pick, because there’s so many good ones. But I love Manao. Rascal’s and Dime are also close to my heart, as are Apollo, Moonrise, and Jun’s. Middle Child, as well, here in Alserkal. There’s many on my list.

What he’s reading: Leaders Eat Last is one of my favorites. I also really like Unreasonable Hospitality. I reference it a lot. I also love The Diary of a CEO, both the book and the podcast.

What he’s watching: I love Somebody Feed Phil; I wait for these seasons to come out, and Chef’s Table as well. There's also a very nice one which is local by Arva Ahmad and OSN. It's called Ditch the Silver.