How I turned my back-home Syrian breakfasts into a British cheese empire
Building a new life in a new country after escaping the war in Syria is no easy feat. Jennifer Sieg sits down with Razan Alsous, founder of Yorkshire Dama Cheese, to see how she did it.
I’d be lying if I said Razan Alsous and I didn’t laugh – a lot – over how much we both love eating cheese for breakfast.
Turns out, halloumi was a breakfast table staple for her family in Syria, and now the entrepreneur tells me how she set out on a mission to build a business out of tradition here in Britain.
Alsous, 41, founded her cheese manufacturing business Yorkshire Dama Cheese in 2014, just two years after fleeing from the Syrian war and settling into her brother-in-law’s Huddersfield home with her husband and three children.
“To be honest, because of the war, we lost almost everything… and I needed to support my family,” she says.
Fortunately, after an unsuccessful job search, Britain’s entrepreneurial community welcomed her in with open arms – and now she has a growing cheese empire (sourced with locally farmed British milk) to lean on.
From basement to supermarket
Within the first few months of living in West Yorkshire, Alsous grew frustrated with the lack of year-round halloumi presence in the supermarket, so she decided to create her own – using a bit of a flavourful twist.
The local job centre and a basement served as a good place to start.
Yorkshire Dama Cheese started with a few faulty ice cream machines in a small takeaway basement and a £2,500 local Enterprise Agency start-up loan.
Now, it’s received over 30 globally recognised awards and its famous ‘Hello-Mi’ rolls are stocked on the shelves of Aldi supermarkets nationwide.
Building a new life in a new country after escaping a war in your home country isn’t easy, Alsous admits, especially while learning how to build and manage a business along with it.
The entrepreneur smiles, however, as she tells me building a business in Britain is like playing a frustrating – yet rather fulfilling – game of Lego.
Within a year of establishing her brand and finally feeling as if she was back on her feet, she was almost knocked down again with a trademark infringement letter forcing her to re-name her cheese.
Apparently, ‘halloumi’ is a protected designation trademark, similar to champagne, meaning only local Cypriot producers can market their products under the name.
Changing everything would have been, Alsous says, “a massive loss.”
This is everything I’ve got.
Razan Alsous
The resilience and determination she had demonstrated up to that point had, once again, helped her power through.
“I escaped the war, I’m here not to fight, I’ve got a mission in my life to establish a business, create a good life for my children and make their future, to recover from our loss in Syria,” she says.
“So I’m not here to fight about what shall I call my cheese, I’m here to make something high quality, tasty [and] bring happiness to people.”
The positive and innovative mindset worked, she says, because her re-brand into ‘Yorkshire Squeaky Cheese’ has been more successful than she could have ever imagined.
She’s still learning how to keep up with the rapidly growing demand, though, especially after their most recent win of Aldi’s ‘Next Big Thing’ contest earlier this month.
“A business idea is important,” she laughs.
“But it’s not the only important element in establishing a business.”
Advice to others
A “groundbreaking discovery” is far from needed to build a successful business, Alsous says, as long as you have the imagination and passion to make it work.
“Halloumi is an existing product, but we add our own signature on it,” she says, smiling.
Indeed, Yorkshire Dama Cheese now offers flavours you would never expect – from rosemary and cool mint to oak-smoked and za-atar – and plans to keep up its innovation efforts in the coming years.
“We’ve been through a really, really hard time, especially during the establishment when we thought without financial support we wouldn’t survive, but it’s fine,” Alsous says.
“We strengthened ourselves – again – and we brought things back and we kept working.”
Her advice to others seems to be too lengthy to keep track of, but if there’s one takeaway from her journey she wishes to share with others, it’s to love what you do and stay inspired by others.
“You will struggle a lot, and if you don’t like what you’re doing, you will quit,” she adds.
There’s no sign of that anytime soon.
CV
Name: Razan Alsous
Company: Yorkshire Dama Cheese
Founded: 2014
Staff: 16
Title: Founder
Age: 41
Born: Damascus
Lives: UK
Studied: Medical institute/Laboratory science, Pharmacy but not graduated, last year in BSC HON PROF PRACTICE IN FOOD TECHNOLOGY (DA)
Talents: Good management skills, creative vision, good analysis
Motto: Your dream will keep flying until you do the first step, do not undervalue your small steps as the river is made by the assumption of the water drops.
Most known for: Entrepreneurship, positivity and cheese
First ambition: To be dependent self earning and having a good life
Favourite book: The power of focus, by Mark Victor Hansen
Best piece of advice?
Facing difficulties in life is mandatory, but you need to know how to understand them, and how to go over them, when you struggle try to change your environment