Original Dubai chocolate maker hits out at British supermarkets for ‘damaging his model’ with dupes

The original makers of the viral Dubai chocolate have hit out at dupes on the market, labelling cheap supermarket copies ‘frustrating’. 

Can’t Get Knafeh of It, by FIX Chocolatier has been sold in the UAE since 2022, by British couple Yezen Alani and his wife Sarah Hamouda.

They created the recipe when Sarah was pregnant, and began selling it for £15.

But last year, the treat found worldwide fame after being shared on TikTok, with people flying from all over the world to get their hands on the pistachio and knafeh treat.

Now, dozens of supermarkets and chocolate brands have made their own version of the ‘Dubai chocolate’ laving Sarah and Yezen reeling. 

Speaking to the BBC, Yezen said that the dupes are ‘very frustrating because people are trying knockoffs, which damages our brand’.

The couple, who moved to Dubai 10 years ago,  had employed just one person to make up to seven orders a day of the chocolate bar.

But since the appetite for the bar has grown, so has their business and they now employ 50 people and make up 500 orders a day.   

Can’t Get Knafeh of It, by FIX Chocolatier is only available in the UAE and frenzy for the £15-bar is so intense that owners Yezen Alani and his wife Sarah Hamouda onyl sell the bar twice a day

The bar went viral after Maria Vehera shared a video of herself sinking her teeth into the sweet treat, oozing with gooey green filling made from sweet filo and pistachio

The sweet treat has become so popular that FIX only sells the bar for two hours a day to keep up with orders and customers can only purchase the £15-treat via a specific app. 

Each bar is hand-finished and the owners explained that it’s a very intensive process.

It’s the crunchy filling that has made the bar so popular with users taking to social media to share videos of themselves slowly biting in to the thick chocolate which has a loud crack when broken.

With people desperate to get their hands on the exclusive bar, supermarkets have filled the void, producing their own versions of the knafeh-inspired confectionery.  

Nestle, Lidl and Lindt having rushed to made their own versions while, Selfridges have had their shelves cleared after fans flocked to the department store in a desperate bid to score the crunchy treat, where prices range from £5 to £27.

So popular are the chocolate bars that a number of sellers had their entire stock sold almost instantly, with a Lindt version having cleared within just 72 minutes on TikTok shop.

But Dubai chocolate doesn’t come cheap, with even affordable options such as those available from Lidl, selling for £3.44 for just 122g of product.

Waitrose have been forced to impose a two-bar limit on choppers and Home bargains has also recently jumped on the bandwagon. 

Nestle, Lidl and Lindt having rushed to made their own versions while, Selfridges have had their shelves cleared after fans flocked to the department store 

Even M&S has got in on the trend and has launched its own ‘Dubai-style’ chocolate.

But the supermarket’s latest sweet offering is a variation of its Big Daddy bar that was hugely popular with shoppers last year.

Like the original Big Daddy bar, the new version features milk chocolate, sweet and salty caramel, and biscuit crumb.

The Big Daddy Bar is described by the retailer as a ‘chunky chocolate bar [that] combines creamy milk and rich dark chocolate with a satisfying centre of peanut butter and roasted peanut pieces, capped with a layer of soft caramel’.   

The frenzy for the bar filled with knafeh, a sweet spun pastry, pistachio and tahini and covered in indulgent milk chocolate was first sparked by a video of a woman sinking her teeth into the sweet treat, oozing with the gooey green filling.

And just 18 months later the bar has seemingly taken over the internet. 

But now the makers behind the sensation have complained about its viral success and slammed supermarkets and other brands for making dupes of their expensive and exclusive treat.

But in a twist, the new bar features a pistachio layer, which boasts pistachio crème, roasted pistachios, and white chocolate.

While UK brands are making their own version of the chocolate bar, the FIX chocolatier owners explain there is a key difference between their luxury dessert and dupes. 

The FIX bar should be kept in the fridge and has a short expiry date while UK versions are designed to have a longer shelf life.

They added that they offer a luxury product and they’re committed to continuing to make it. 

Yezen told the BBC: ‘It’s all handmade, every single design is done by hand. 

‘We use premium ingredients and the process is not like making other bars – you’ve got the baking, moulding the chocolate to the design and with the filling itself, even the pistachios are hand-picked and processed’.