Geeta Pahlajani, a Dubai-born Indian, had always suffered from coeliac disease, an autoimmune disorder that causes a reaction to gluten found in wheat and other grains, but did not know where to find palatable and cheap products she could eat.
Her only option was buying gluten-free products such as bread from pharmacies.
"The taste was horrible with an obnoxious price point: Dh80 for a loaf of bread," Ms Pahlajani recalls.
“I realised there was a major gap for anything that is healthy, natural and organic.”
So when she came back to Dubai after finishing her studies in the UK in 2008, she began to study the market to find cheap alternatives to meet her dietary needs.
That’s when the idea for Goodness Cart, an online marketplace for products that are organic, healthy, sustainable or natural, sprung up.
Eight years later, she set up the business in Dubai after extensive study, and last month she officially started selling products on the platform, which collates products from various vendors.
Ms Pahlajani may have potentially struck a pot of gold.
The GCC e-commerce market, which at $5.3 billion in 2015 represented only 0.4 per cent of GDP back then, is forecast to nearly quadruple to $20bn by 2020, thanks to high mobile penetration and GDP per capita, according to consultancy AT Kearney.
Health and wellness is part and parcel of the e-commerce space and it is growing globally.
The healthy eating, nutrition and weight loss sector was worth $648bn globally in 2015, according to data provider Statista.
“According to some estimates, the health and wellness market in the UAE, which also includes various healthy and organic F&B products, was at around Dh5bn in 2016,” said Anurag Bajpai, partner and head of retail at KPMG Lower Gulf. “However, given the size of the total F&B market in the UAE, healthy eating is a relatively small niche, but steadily growing segment.
The market is expanding for various reasons.
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Besides greater awareness around healthy living, the UAE Government is taking initiatives to improve the lifestyle of residents and citizens though various campaigns. The Government, which is also trying to fight obesity, has introduced an excise tax on tobacco and sugary and fizzy drinks, a move that will help limit unhealthy habits.
“While the healthy eating market might be relatively small today, it is growing rapidly,” said Mr Bajpai.
“The key driver for this growth is that young people in the UAE today are increasingly health conscious and more aware of the healthy eating choices available to them. This has spurred the demand for healthy eating in the recent times.”
According to KPMG, heathy eating is becoming more popular, but options remain limited.
Only 45 per cent of respondents to a 2017 survey said there are enough healthy options offered.
Ms Pahlajani is moving fast to capture this underserved segment of the market. Having launched in mid-March, Goodness Cart has signed up more than 35 vendors and is hoping to reach 100 by the end of the year.
But that was not the initial idea for Goodness Cart, which was supposed to be just an online retailer. Now it offers a platform that connects vendors, logistics companies and other stakeholders.
"We realised that an online retailer would not suffice," says Ms Pahlajani , who is chief executive of the company. "We needed to give all the different people in the supply chain a little bit more. The little bit more meant we had to give them a platform where they could plug in and do inventory management. They basically needed a proper process to actually connect with the customer. At the same time, we needed to ensure that there were the right set of logistics partners involved because we deal with a lot of different categories."
Goodness Cart accepts products that are either healthy, organic, natural or sustainable and that gives it a wide range of items that can be listed on the platform, which also include home, beauty and baby care products. But 70 per cent of the offerings are food and beverage based.
The vendors on the platform range from local farms to manufacturers, all of them based in the UAE and vetted to make sure they meet the company’s criteria.
Besides the heatlhy aspect of the business, Ms Pahlajani saw an opportunity to develop something else: a technology that could streamline processes and help vendors capture more customers in an easy and efficient way.
“Goodness Cart at the end of the day is a technology business,” says Ms Pahlajani. “We don’t produce, we don’t manufacture any of our products. We used the first year and a half to set up our operation in terms of technology because we have proprietary technology built for this market and industry.”
Ms Pahlajani is planning to make technology a second revenue stream besides volume going through the platform, with an aim for it to generate 50 per cent of revenue.
“We are white labelling the solution and will be offering it to other e-commerce providers across the different GCC countries,” she says.
With both sides of the business, Ms Pahlajani is forecasting to grow revenue 30 per cent year-on-year. She is already thinking of initiating a funding round to help build up the business, which is currently funded with seed money from her own resources and an unnamed Indian investment company.
Her aim is to conquer the whole of the Arabian Gulf region in the next few years.
“Our current focus is to use the UAE as a pilot market and our next phase would mean entering Kuwait because the market has a very similar consumer base like the UAE, before progressing to a much larger market like Saudi Arabia.”
Ms Pahlajani is seeking to attract regional investors to get a foothold in the remaining GCC markets and she expects to go for a growth round in the next 18 months.
Despite the progress in setting up her business, Ms Pahlajani did not have an easy ride.
Convincing partners that her business case made sense was also a tough sell.
“The moment I was having this conversation with our partners about creating an ecosystem that was ecommerce-driven there was a lot of resistance,” she recalls.
She cites the high cost of doing business as another major challenge for start-ups, who have to deal with a lot of financial overheads and licensing fees among other costs.
Also finding the right talent with the right skill sets is a problem.
So why choose the UAE?
“I was born and grew up here,” Ms Pahlajani says.
“It is home at the end of the day. This was the obvious choice for setting up my own business.”
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
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The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
Company%20profile
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The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Terminator: Dark Fate
Director: Tim Miller
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Mackenzie Davis
Rating: 3/5
The Perfect Couple
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Jack Reynor
Creator: Jenna Lamia
Rating: 3/5
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Under 19 World Cup
Group A: India, Japan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka
Group B: Australia, England, Nigeria, West Indies
Group C: Bangladesh, Pakistan, Scotland, Zimbabwe
Group D: Afghanistan, Canada, South Africa, UAE
UAE fixtures
Saturday, January 18, v Canada
Wednesday, January 22, v Afghanistan
Saturday, January 25, v South Africa
more from Janine di Giovanni
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
The winners
Fiction
- ‘Amreekiya’ by Lena Mahmoud
- ‘As Good As True’ by Cheryl Reid
The Evelyn Shakir Non-Fiction Award
- ‘Syrian and Lebanese Patricios in Sao Paulo’ by Oswaldo Truzzi; translated by Ramon J Stern
- ‘The Sound of Listening’ by Philip Metres
The George Ellenbogen Poetry Award
- ‘Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance’ by Fady Joudah
Children/Young Adult
- ‘I’ve Loved You Since Forever’ by Hoda Kotb
RESULTS
6pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round-2 – Group 1 (PA) $55,000 (Dirt) 1,900m
Winner: Rajeh, Antonio Fresu (jockey), Musabah Al Muhairi (trainer)
6.35pm: Oud Metha Stakes – Rated Conditions (TB) $60,000 (D) 1,200m
Winner: Get Back Goldie, William Buick, Doug O’Neill
7.10pm: Jumeirah Classic – Listed (TB) $150,000 (Turf) 1,600m
Winner: Sovereign Prince, James Doyle, Charlie Appleby
7.45pm: Firebreak Stakes – Group 3 (TB) $150,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner: Hypothetical, Mickael Barzalona, Salem bin Ghadayer
8.20pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round-2 – Group 2 (TB) $350,000 (D) 1,900m
Winner: Hot Rod Charlie, William Buick, Doug O’Neill
8.55pm: Al Bastakiya Trial – Conditions (TB) $60,000 (D) 1,900m
Winner: Withering, Adrie de Vries, Fawzi Nass
9.30pm: Balanchine – Group 2 (TB) $180,000 (T) 1,800m
Winner: Creative Flair, William Buick, Charlie Appleby
THE SPECS
Engine: 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12 petrol engine
Power: 420kW
Torque: 780Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh1,350,000
On sale: Available for preorder now
Super Rugby play-offs
Quarter-finals
- Hurricanes 35, ACT 16
- Crusaders 17, Highlanders 0
- Lions 23, Sharks 21
- Chiefs 17, Stormers 11
Semi-finals
Saturday, July 29
- Crusaders v Chiefs, 12.35pm (UAE)
- Lions v Hurricanes, 4.30pm
The National in Davos
We are bringing you the inside story from the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, a gathering of hundreds of world leaders, top executives and billionaires.
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
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