It began as a sweet experiment.
A hiatus from her day job gave Sana’a Zuberi, an advertising and communications professional, the chance to explore her culinary potential about two years ago. The outcome was both gratifying and palatable.
Zuberi’s contract with a multi-national organisation had just ended when a friend suggested her to initiate her own food blog to share her recipes in the cyberspace. At first, the idea struck Zuberi as whimsical.
“I thought who would read my blog? There are countless other blogs out there anyway,” she said. But upon the friend’s behest, she went along and created her a WordPress blog, titled “Ghee Shakkar”.
In a short span of time, the blog was generating traffic from all over the world. “Then it became really fun and interesting,” said Zuberi, whose blog has spiralled into an up-and-coming bake business and customised event management services.
Ghee Shakar specialises in planning, managing and catering a plethora of events from bridal showers to graduation parties. It offers a unique aesthetic and bespoke theme, and has also tapped in the niche market of made-to-order, personalised gifts. They currently operate through their Facebook page and cater to international clients who wish to mail gifts within the country.
The venture Ghee Shakar Celebrations encompasses organising parties such as wedding showers, baby showers, birthdays, graduation parties, as well as providing party paraphernalia such as gift baskets, wedding assortments, customised giveaways, announcement boxes, corporate gifts and more.
As far as food is concerned, they have a short menu and they sub-group it as Ghee Shakar Daawat. Clients can, however order off menu, given reasonable notice in advance.
Zuberi explained, “For example, cupcakes are our speciality, but we use icing instead of fondant for the decoration because it tastes better and that is what is the most important to us.” They also specialise in cheesecakes, cookies and assorted finger food.
With the tagline, “Aapke muhn mein ghee shakar”, she aspires to understand the feel their clients are going for and then translate those ideas into everything from invitation cards, to party décor and gifts.
“Every order is like a challenge and providing solutions to bring people happiness just makes my day and keeps me motivated. The remarkable feedback we have gotten in this short time and opportunities to create have been so exciting and encouraging,” said Zuberi.
However, running one’s own business is no easy feat. “Running your own business is definitely more demanding compared to working a job, because you’re not just doing one thing, but managing clients, vendors, finances, communication and creating products or services, however in the end, it is so much more rewarding. Every order is exciting and we get a creative outlet,” she added.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 12th, 2014.