São Paulo – Francisco das Chagas Neto is not from an Arab family, but it was with Middle Eastern cuisine, more precisely sweets from the region, that he gained fame and did good business. Born in Rio Grande do Norte, he got to São Paulo in 1977, after having spent his childhood and adolescence in Ceará. He worked as a construction site hand until he got a job in an Arab restaurant. That was where his story started changing.
At Oriente House, an establishment in Brás neighbourhood, he met Alice Mawadi, a Lebanese who introduced him to the cuisine of her country. “She taught me much about Arab cuisine. It was she who transferred the secrets of cuisine to me,” explained the businessman. He learnt how to cook savoury dishes and also sweets. It was with the latter that he attracted the attention of the owners of restaurants in 25 March Street region, the most Arab of streets in São Paulo. He set up his own business and started winning clients.
In the early 1990s, his company went broke and he had to start all over again. "I became an employee once more. In late 1994, with 1,000 reals [around US$ 1,000 at the time] given to me by my mother, I restarted and sought clients all over again,” he recalled. It was from the new beginning that CH Doces was formed, whose factory occupies an entire two-story house in the eastern zone of the city of São Paulo. Currently, with 23 employees, mostly immigrants like him, the company produces 5,000 sweets a day, including mammoul, fatair, pillows, triangles, bassima, cushions and belew, among others.
"I have always been a trader, and liked selling,” said Chagas, who may not have Arab blood, but has a talent for business, as is the case with the Arabs. Among his clients are typical Arab cuisine restaurants in the central region of São Paulo, like Folha de Uva, Empório Sírio, Raful, Jacob, Ponto Árabe, Confeitaria Pagé and Empório Akkar. Within São Paulo alone, CH Doces sells to 80 clients, with the remaining ones spread throughout the state and also in Minas Gerais, Paraná, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Pernambuco, Espírito Santo and Alagoas.
Apart from what was taught him by Alice, Chagas never did Arab cuisine courses, but did not stop learning about the matter. "As I already worked with food, I was called to participate in parties and events, where I exchanged experience. I am always bringing novelties here [to the factory]," he points out. The next of these novelties will be diet Arab sweets, which should enter the market in the near future.
With his work, Chagas developed good relations with the Arab community, even being called to promote typical parties and dinners, in which he is responsible for all the food, including savoury dishes like grape rolls, hummus, safihas, stuffed zucchini and others. "It is a family that adopted me, and I them,” he says, regarding these relations. In 2004 and 2005, Chagas was responsible for the Club Homs buffet. It is currently he who promotes dinners at Esperia club, which may bring together up to 1,200 people.
Among the ingredients included in the sweets are almonds, pistachio, chestnuts, apricots and figs, as well as Brazilian products like cashew nuts, a national touch given by the businessman to his products. "Today, 60% of sweets are produced with these ingredients,” he said. According to the entrepreneur, the sweets that are most successful among clients are burma, faisalim, nests and bassima.
Aged 53, Chagas has never been to an Arab country, but would greatly like to. “I dream of visiting Lebanon and Syria as they are the countries that produce the best quality sweets [in the Arab world]," he said. Here, the businessman’s Arab sweets generate average revenues of 120,000 reals (around US$ 64,000) a month.
Contact
CH Doces
Tel.: +55 11 2541-1781
E-mail: atendimento@chdoces.com.br
Site: www.chdoces.com.br
*Translated by Mark Ament
