Tayybeh: Building a Business Through the Strength Of Syrian Women

Tayybeh is Vancouver's top provider of Middle Eastern catering services and authentic specialty Syrian products. The word Tayybeh in Arabic means “kind” in the feminine form and in the colloquial Syrian dialect, it means “delicious!” These two words not only capture the essence of the company, but are part of its ethos. 

A social enterprise established in October 2016 to provide employment, social support, and financial security to Syrian newcomer women, Tayybeh began as an immensely popular dinner series across the Lower Mainland. After many sold out dinners and significant demand for the food, the company was launched to meet growing catering demands and to support as many Syrian women chefs as possible. Today, Tayybeh's all-women operation is the provider of award-winning catering for all occasions and authentic Syrian marinated grill products, dips, spreads, delicacies, and frozen meals.

What kind of food do you make at Tayybeh?

Tayybeh offers a very wide range of products, all prepared by our incredible team of newcomer women chefs based on family recipes from their hometowns.  At SFU’s Dining Hall Pop-Up, we are proud to offer our best-selling homestyle pita chips. These golden crunchy pita squares pack so much flavour and are impossible to resist . They pair perfectly with Tayybeh’s dips, spreads, and salads. We are also offering our Syrian Chickpea Salad, a much loved favourite in the Levantine cuisine. 

As for Tayybeh’s other products, we are proud to have one of the most sought after signature catering services in the Lower Mainland. With Tayybeh catering service, we are able to bring our delicious cuisine to every setting and occasion–from office lunches and conferences to weddings, cocktail receptions, and family dinners. In addition to our catering services, our team of award-winning chefs, we have launched numerous product lines available for purchase directly from our website or at farmers’ markets, specialty grocery stores, online stores, and popular meal kit programs. Tayybeh’s three specialty dips and spreads–mhammarah sweet red pepper spread, hummus, and smoked eggplant and tahini mutabbal—are all best-sellers across the city. Most recently, we launched our line of frozen products. These include our Tayybeh Grillz, a collection of marinated meats and vegetarian specialties (from Mesahhab, chicken skewers, beef kebab, Syrian burgers, and falafel burgers to name a few.) For those looking for a ready made meal available at convenience, we have frozen meals for two that can be popped into the oven or microwave for a swift hot meal.  

What advice do you have for aspiring foodpreneurs?

The most important pieces advice I can impart to those wanting to go into food business, is several counterintuitive things. The first is to not be afraid to take risks. It is only through risks do we discover our strengths and amend our weaknesses. The second, which mitigates the first, is to also be flexible and adaptable in your plans. Especially since the advent of COVID-19, so many food businesses had to amend their model to deliver food differently.  As a business owner in this capacity, as hard as it sounds, you must do everything you can to contain stress and anxiety. The key is to not burn out.

What advice do you have for SFU students who aspire to have their own business one day?

For SFU students who hope to have a business someday, in addition to the profit margins and determination to succeed, I advise them to be true to the spirit of their university. This means being engaged in communities, the world, and focusing on how their business might benefit the vulnerable or needy, or at the very least, not contribute to or exacerbate inequities or environmental degradation. The future of enterprises is social, so coming up with projects that give back to communities is the new recipe for success.

Where can people find your products?

All of our products–from catering to dips, and from Tayybeh Grillz to desserts–can be purchased directly from our website Tayybeh.com. We are also in farmers’ markets across the city, at some stores such as Stongs, NADA, Spud, Pomme, Nature’s Fare, Jarr, and Livelite to name a few. Tayybeh products are also featured in meal programs such as FreshPrep and Upmeals.

What’s coming up next for you?

We are super excited that our best-selling dips are getting a whole new packaging which looks extraordinarily beautiful. It’ll have the same delicious taste in a much prettier presentation. We are also officially launching our pita chips with new packaging as well in the Spring. One thing we are especially thrilled about is having our products sold beyond the Lower Mainland!

Finally, we are finalizing a Tayybeh cookbook which will be published by one of the top presses in the world and will feature the story of our social enterprise, profiling our amazing Syrian women chefs, and showcasing the resilience of this project in the face of so many adversities. We cannot wait to share it with everyone :)

Tayybeh’s success has been a testament to the resilience of our all-women team, most of whom escaped the war in their home country to create a new life in Canada. They were also received so warmly in Vancouver. So many people embraced them and supported them. Tayybeh’s survival is the result of the city’s embrace of us. We are proud and humbled by this support. Having won so many accolades in the last five years–City of Vancouver’s Excellence Award 2019, TELUS Small Business Hero Award 2020, Georgia Straight’s Best of Vancouver 2018, VMW Women’s Champion Award 2018, and Western Living’s Foodies of the Year Award 2017–Tayybeh is fortunate to have gotten so much love.

Join us on our Instagram, Facebook and check out our website to keep up with what’s new at Tayybeh!