It was refugee customers at his pharmacy in Wuppertal, Germany that gave Ribal Dib his inspiration. Where, they asked, could they find the ingredients for a beloved Middle Eastern dish? A favourite Syrian cheese?
A year after almost 1m people, mostly Syrians fleeing war, reached Germany in 2015, Mr Dib realised the craving for a taste of home was a start-up opportunity.
“A market in Germany was born overnight,” said Mr Dib, who fled his hometown of Damascus after his pharmacy was destroyed by shelling. “I could bring the homeland to them all, with the press of a button.”
Three years on, his online Middle Eastern food marketplace Mozzaik attracts 5m-6m site visitors a year and serves 180,000 regular customers. The entrepreneur is part of a promising German trend: immigrants are behind 26 per cent of the country’s start-ups — four percentage points higher than their share of the population, a study shows.
