Muslim Entrepreneur’s Story of Success
"Most of my friends at university were non-Muslims, and when we did a weekly food shop together their trolleys were full of really tasty-looking ready meals, and all I could buy were things like cheese and onion pasties," Saleem told the BBC on Sunday, February 23.
"It was really frustrating, and I used to whinge a lot that I was missing out. I thought, why wasn't anyone making halal ready meals, other than the odd curry?
"That was when I decided I needed to do something about it. While moonlighting on other things, I then spent the next eight years putting together all the pieces of the jigsaw that needed to be in place before I launched Ieat."
The 29-year-old from Luton is the founder of newly launched ready-meals business Ieat Foods (as in "I eat").
The new line of production makes a range of traditional British and Italian dishes, such as shepherd's pie and lasagna, prepared according to halal and shari`ah law.
But, Saleem’s success story was not an easy one.
Leaving university, Saleem first got her first job at UK entrepreneur Peter Jones, one of the "dragons" from the BBC TV show Dragons' Den.
Though her work was a dream opportunity for many, the young lady could not be satisfied with a salaried job which limited her ambitions, deciding to quit the job at 25.
"It was great working for Peter, but I needed to go and do something for myself," she says. "I needed to push myself."
Leaving the company, she started her Cambodia adventure, buying 50% of a run-down holiday resort.
"Some people thought I was mad, but I needed to go and do something completely different," she says.
"I was like a project manager, and we turned the development into Cambodia's first eco-resort. We made a success of it, and ultimately I sold my share."
“Go & Do It”
Returning to the UK, Saleem finally launched Ieat Foods, conducting a market research, which showed there were thousands of second-generation UK Muslims like her who wanted to buy halal ready-meals.
"The first generation of Muslims who came to this country typically would have stuck to the food they were used to," she says.
"But us younger Muslims want to try different types of foods, we want to eat the 'normal' foods that British people do.
"Ieat gives those that follow the halal rules a convenient and healthy chance to do so."
Now, the young lady runs a halal-only factory in Yorkshire.
The first glimpses of success appeared when Sainsbury's agreed to take Ieat Foods' first 12 product lines in its stores in London, Birmingham and Leicester.
With just five employees at present, Saleem has big plans to expand Ieat Foods.
“I get my ambition from my parents, who came to this country from Sri Lanka with nothing and both worked multiple jobs to make a good life for themselves and their family,” she says.
“And my faith and my British identity is why I'm doing this particular business. I'm just mixing the two.”
Source: On Islam
