The UAE’s sandscape isn’t the most hospitable environment in which to grow crops or rear livestock, so it’s no surprise that most of the food we eat is imported. In fact, the UAE imports more than 80 per cent of its food, and the GCC region imports more food per capita than anywhere else in the world – the UAE alone spent Dhs25.5 billion on food imports in 2010.
According to the 2010 Gulfood Briefing, India is the biggest exporter of food to the UAE, providing the country with 18 per cent of its produce. Brazil is second with 13 per cent, and China isn’t far behind with 12 per cent, followed by the United States (10 per cent), and Australia (eight per cent). Of these imports, vegetables account for the highest percentage, followed by prepared foods, then meat.
The UAE’s dependence on imported goods doesn’t bode well for its capacity to sustain its five million (ish) population, nor its green credentials (its carbon footprint is the second highest per capita in the world, not helped by the fact that 50 per cent of this food is then re-exported to other countries in the Gulf, Eastern Europe, India and Africa). This trend is unlikely to change any time soon – as the population rises, and with more restaurants set to open, more food is needed. Even in the wake of the 2009 financial crisis, food consumption in the UAE is predicted to increase by 4.74 per cent a year between 2011 and 2014.
Agriculture accounts for only three per cent of the UAE’s GDP, despite recent efforts to turn 7,237sq km of desert into farmable land, although the UAE does produce fruit and vegetables such as aubergines, dates, cucumbers and tomatoes. Something the UAE does have in abundance, however, is camels, so it’s no surprise that the government has announced plans to start exporting camel milk to Europe this year. As well as developing its own food industry on home soil, the UAE (like many Arab nations) has invested in African farmland (with farms as big as 50,000 acres in Egypt and 100,000 acres in Sudan) to cultivate crops for the country.
But can these efforts catch up with, let alone match, the rapid development of the hospitality industry here? For example, the monthly shopping list of the Beach Rotana hotel features huge quantities of produce that couldn’t possibly be sourced locally.
At the end of the day, what we eat and where it’s from is a choice that’s entirely down to consumers, and, while Abu Dhabi isn’t the most environmentally friendly place in the world, locally grown produce is available. We spoke to chefs and retailers to find out where our food was coming from, and where we could buy home-grown produce.
Shopping locally
If you thought locally sourced food was impossible to find in Abu Dhabi, you thought wrong. We speak to a forward-thinking restaurateur who has her heart set on promoting home-grown produce.
Yael Mejia is so fierce in her advocacy for locally grown produce, she’s almost frightening. When we ask the founder of Dubai’s Baker & Spice café-cum-delicatessen whether it matters that so much of the food
we eat is imported, it’s as though I have insulted her personally.
‘Where do I start?’ she exclaims. ‘Number one, carbon footprint; number two, local produce is a superior product: it’s fresher; it actually tastes better, which, from my perspective is top of the list. And, because it’s fresher, it’s better for you because it hasn’t gone through so much refrigeration – and you know how old it is.’
Yael says she uses three organic farms in the Abu Dhabi region for her business’s produce – Abu Dhabi Organic Farms, Al Showeib Farms and Dar Al Fatah Farms.
‘I get almost everything I need from these three farms – from basil to broccoli, and tomatoes to strawberries. Their range is huge and it’s of exceptional quality,’ says Yael.
‘Now about 90 per cent of everything sold at Baker & Spice is produced locally. You just have to make decisions about what you’re not going to use. You build your menu around ingredients that exist here. It’s just a state of mind and our kitchen works like a home kitchen. If we have it we cook it, if we don’t, we don’t.’
‘I don’t have an objection to stuff being flown in from abroad, but we have to start to think where from and why. At the moment I’m flying in the most astoundingly good grapes from India, while at the same time there are grapes from South Africa and Australia. You just have to do the maths and work out which one is closer,’ she urges.
So where can we buy fresh, locally grown produce? At the moment, Yael organises a weekly farmers’ market at the Souk Al Bahar in Dubai, and she has started thinking about setting up a similar business in Abu Dhabi. But Yael says supermarkets such as Lulu and Carrefour are beginning to stock locally sourced fruit and veg on their shelves.
So what tips does she have for us, the consumer, to buy more responsibly? ‘Read the labels!’ she exclaims. ‘Read them in the same way you’d read labels on packaged goods, and start understanding where this stuff comes from. It is everyone’s tiny daily decisions that can change the face of food in this country.’
Meanwhile, a few Abu Dhabi eateries are beginning to focus on sourcing local ingredients. Jones the Grocer café in Muroor is one of these, and its owner, Yunib Siddiqui, says he is trying to buy as much of his products as he can from within the UAE.
He says ‘Depending on the season, we source local fish for some of our seafood dishes. We also source a range of local vegetables, herbs, meat, poultry and eggs. The shorter time from farm to table always works in flavouring local produce. The other key component is reliability of supply – importation always results in supply chain uncertainty.’
Yael’s monthly shopping list
What she buys, and where she buys it from.
Potatoes: Lebanon/Saudi Arabia, 750kg
Carrots: Saudi Arabia, 400kg
Olives: Lebanon/Greece, 300kg
Mushrooms: Oman, 250kg
Eggs: UAE, 7,000
Strawberries: UAE, 400kg (when in season)
Dates: UAE,50kg
Aubergines: UAE, 400kg
Rice: India, 500kg
Dissecting the dishes
Time Out sits down to a three-course meal at Finz with head chef Anja van Zyl and clocks up the air miles.
With the highest profile names in the culinary kingdom choosing to open outlets in Abu Dhabi, the city’s diners have never had it so good. But you can’t expect five-star cuisine without five-star ingredients, and, given that the Middle East’s climate means it struggles to produce some of the staples we’ve come to expect on our plates, this often means shipping goods in from far-flung locations.
‘We live in a desert!’ says Anja. ‘So you have to import if you want the best quality, especially fruit and veg.’ Not that the city’s chefs should lose sight of environmental responsibility. ‘It’s important to support the local market, of course’, says Anja. ‘The dates in our date cake are local; we make use of the local supplies of pomfret fish, red snapper and yellow emperor.’ Most dishes, then, will contain a mix of regional and… not-so-regional ingredients.
Starter
Three kinds of salmon
Japanese, marinated and smoked salmon with horseradish cream
Where it’s from:
Salmon – Norway (5,561km)
Edamame beans – Japan (8,002km)
Main
Royal seafood mixed grill
Prawn, hammour, calamari, scallop, tuna, sea bass, half lobster tail, mesclun salad, jasmine rice and saffron butter sauce
Where it’s from:
Tiger prawn – Oman (413km)
Hammour – Mina fish market, Abu Dhabi (4km)
Calamari – Patagonia (14,515km away)
Tuna – Philippines (7,501km away)
Lobster tail – Maine, USA (10,418km)
Sea bass – Norway (5,561km)
Dessert
The best of chocolate
Dark chocolate fondant, warm chocolate pudding and gianduja chocolate ice cream
Where it’s from:
Callebaut chocolate – Belgium (5,252km)
Berries – Holland (5,146km)
Total distance travelled: 62,373km
