Selected 2014

Nehman Hachem

  • Current company Hintrag
  • Industry Food & Beverage

Hintrag, founded by Lebanese Nehman and Samer Hachem in 2008, provides customers with locally specialized varieties of high-quality powdered drinks and desserts – from Lebanese dessert mixes to Asian dumpling mixes. The company’s mission is to become a global leader in instant powered food and drinks.

Nehman and Samer learned about the industry by observing their family’s powered drink factory. When they finished schooling – Nehman with a degree in business marketing, and Samer with a degree in computer science – their parents had sold the business, so the cousins helped out in the family-owned supermarket instead. They noticed that customers were not purchasing powered products because they were too generic. They decided to fill the market gap, and launched Hitrag in 2008, with four powdered drinks under the brand “Aruba”. By 2010, their new team sold Aruba drinks and desserts to a thousand stores in the country.

Hitrag offers its customers high quality but reasonably priced powdered drinks and desserts with customized recipes for different markets using neither artificial preservatives nor GMOs. The products are largely catered to the taste preferences of the Middle Eastern Diaspora, and are typically seasonal, with drinks generating most of the sales in the summer and dessert lines generating more in winter.

With eight years of R&D experience, Hintrag’s local know-how allows it to create specific recipes, yet remain agile and responsive to customer demand and supply chain challenges. They are looking to become a leading player in their market, and are well on their way.

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