Meet Hannah Saaydeh of Jaafer Sweets in Albany Park

Today we’d like to introduce you to Hannah Saaydeh.

Jaafer Sweets, a Middle Eastern Bakery, baking Baklava, knafeh & other Middle Eastern pastries was established in 1991. Hannah & Nabil (husband & wife team) bought the business in September 2008. Hannah had minimum business experience, however Nabil did have more from previous jobs. Hannah & Nabil have always had a sweet – creative thumb in the kitchen & had always known they would one day venture into the Food Industry.

Hannah – please fill us in on the rest of the story.

We continued to work our daily jobs when we first purchased Jaafer Sweets; doing this allowed us to learn the day to day routine of the business. We had reliable staff who have been the pastry chefs since Jaafer Sweets opened in 1991. After a few months of observation, in 2009 we upgraded the pastry recipes to be all natural, created Jaafer Sweets into a branded Item & decided to test the wholesale market. We started out with small grocery stores and worked our way up to 7-11 corporation. We were an instant hot item on the market in grocery stores. We started to work full time in the business broadening our wholesale market. We approached Whole Foods Market & became an approved vendor. I saw there was a need in the market for Vegan & Gluten Free products- I then created Vegan Baklava & Gluten Free & Vegan Pistachio Sesame Bars. Today we are a wholesale manufactures, distributors to Whole Foods Market in USA & Canada, Mariano’s & many other local and nationwide stores, restaurants including hotels. Innovation, determination, strength, vision, freshness, quality products have brought us to where we are today. We now make knafeh (sweet cheese dish) fresh to order per customer & this is our #1 item in our retail location as well as Baklava along with the cookies. We were featured on ABC7 Hungry Hound.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
In the beginning we faced a few bumps as we learned the business & how the market outside operated, but once we learned it was smooth sailing.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Jaafer Sweets – what should we know?
Jaafer Sweets bakes the freshest baklava & cookies daily with fresh, all natural products. We have walnut, cashew, pistachio, chocolate & vegan Baklava. Gluten free & Vegan Pistachio sesame bars. knafeh is made fresh for each customer. it is a sweet cheese dish (the cheese is sandwiched between 2 layers of shredded phyllo dough & clarified butter, baked until the cheese melts and drizzled with our all natural in house made sugar syrup (just sugar & water). we also have Sugar Free products for those who are diabetic or have sugar restrictions. we do not compete with anyone that sells Middle Eastern Products, we are unique & set a trend by innovating products that our customers want.

We are very proud to be vendors in Large Corporate stores like Whole Foods Market (USA & Canada) & Mariano’s.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Our great customer service, fresh all natural products, the variety we offer our retail & wholesale customers. Our products can be purchased via Amazon Prime & UberEats. We also cater all event sweet tables.

We also ship our products via UPS all throughout USA.

Pricing:

• pricing starts at $9.99lb Baklava
• pricing for knafeh is by the tray & starts at $11.99 per tray

Contact Info:

• Address: Jaafer Sweets
  4825 N. Kedzie Ave, Chicago IL 60625
• Website: www.jaafer.com
• Phone: 773.463.3933
• Email: customerservice@jaafer.com
• Facebook: facebook.com/JaaferSweets

Image Credit:
Hannah Moses
Steve Dolinsky