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Katerina Christoforou, The sweet rewards of tradition, Living

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Katerina with some of the sweets in her shop

A company making traditional Cyprus sweets is currently battling it out in a contest for Europe’s leading businesses. CONSTANTINA GEORGIADOU meets its owner

Hospitality, tradition and delicious food: elements of Cyprus cherished by locals and tourists alike. And it is these elements that are behind the success of Katerina Home Made Sweets and it recently being nominated to represent Cyprus at the European Business Awards.

Company owner Katerina Christoforou started out making traditional sweets from fruit in syrup (gliko) at home, picking fruit from her garden and using recipes taught to her by her mother and grandmother. It began as a hobby, she says, when she was pregnant with her son. She enjoyed making the sweets and giving them away as presents to friends and other locals. Little did she realise that when an aunt in Limassol suggested she sold some jars to a supermarket that the £27 she made out of her first sale would be the beginning of such a huge success.

On arriving at Katerina’s shop in the Limassol village of Doros, I was, of course, offered sweets with my coffee and I indulged in some that consumers are a bit reticent to try: olive, ginger and raspberry. They were all mouth watering and very different from gliko I have tried in the past.

The secret behind her success, Katerina says, lies in the fact that her products are made from the very best fruit, flowers and vegetables. And she keeps an eye on quality control by picking the fruit herself, being very selective about which ones will be made into sweets – “the fruit has to be just right, not too ripe and not too green”. By making herself part of the manufacturing process every day, Katerina makes sure that her products are all fresh and cooked in the right way.

She also oversees the sweets’ preparation on a daily basis, making sure that all health and safety rules are followed. The bottling of the sweets is done by Katerina herself and she assists in the labelling of the final product too, which is done by hand. “We do not use machines, everything is done by hand,” she says.

Her heart really does belong to the business and she says it means as much to her as her family. “They are like my children,” she says of the fruits. Each one is special to her and she says she would recognise her own sweets anywhere because of the unique way she makes them.

The new focus of the company is that the sweets fall under the category of ‘functional foods’, foods where recipes are altered and often new ingredients are added for the product to gain a new function, usually one to do with health promotion or disease prevention.

Katerina has developed her grandmother’s recipes to give them a new lease of life, making sweets out of more unusual fruit, flowers and vegetables, including olives, roses and even garlic. And many of the sweets now offer specific benefits: ginger is good for those who have bad blood circulation, while walnuts are very good for those with anaemia, while “pomegranate and prickly pears are good for cancer patients, rose petals are good for constipation and mastic is good for those with cholesterol. I call these foods slow foods because they have the opposite function of fast food,” she remarks.

Katerina has kept the business in the family, with her daughter now working as her Marketing Manager, promoting the company through social networks, through the company’s website and by attending various exhibitions around the world. The company now exports not only to the UK, but also to the US, Dubai, Japan, Australia and Belgium. It has also started making mini versions of the sweets as wedding and Christening favours.

Katerina’s company was nominated to take part in the European Business Awards – she was first on a shortlist of ten Cyprus companies to represent the island, which was whittled down to just her at the end of the summer. Her nomination was apparently based on the warmth and hospitality in her shop in Doros. She was then chosen over other Cyprus companies based on the excellence and innovation of her business. By making it through to the final round, Katerina received a ‘Ruban d’honneur’ and will take part in the competition’s final round next month in Barcelona.

Katerina says she feels special in this competition because as a company “we started with no capital”.

The award itself is sponsored by HSBC and the judging panel includes high profile judges including the former presidents of Bulgaria and Romania in addition to well-known European business pioneers. Katerina says it is a great honour to be nominated alongside such European stalwarts as IKEA and Carlsberg but that it is also slightly intimidating.

“There is a certain pressure now to be perfect,” Katerina says, but “my life is not going to change; I will remain down to earth”.

www.katerinasweets.com