Our Story
Droubna is the story of a family business led by two ambitious women, a mother and her daughter who started Droubna passionately from the comfort of their own home and now have touched many homes with their hand-crafted products.
How did it all start?
Being born and reared in Beqaa, Droubna’s Founder Reem Khalil Haidar, fueled her passion for the countryside, animals, and farmers. Her thirst for conserving and nurturing the soil drove her to study and obtain her certificate in Agricultural Engineering from Saint Joseph University (USJ). Her profound connection with the land and the people led to her becoming one of Lebanon’s leading agronomists as a consequence of her perseverance in learning, sharing, and farming.
Her quest for knowledge never ended; she was constantly researching and creating new methods and procedures to help the farmers reach their full potential. Her latest move was to return to university to back up all of her theoretical knowledge. She returned to USJ after 25 years to pursue a Master’s degree in Food Technology. Following her graduation, she started a small-scale initiative in Southern Lebanon, where she empowers farmers of Lebanon to produce high-end agricultural products able to compete with world-class ones. Her project focuses on Lebanese culinary culture and the preservation of history and culture.
After obtaining her Master’s degree, she began implementing all new competencies and skills acquired during her exhaustive research and particularly undertook extensive research for suppliers, farms, and receipts. She used the trial-and-error technique, creating over ten distinct recipes for one single product and documenting all the information so she could have full access to what is healthier, tastier, and retains the Lebanese character.
Crafting relationships and building a strong supplier network
Because she is a generous woman of the land, she has been fostering strong relationships with farmers, suppliers, people, and municipalities. She demonstrates various capacity-building training programs every year in which she explains and trains farmers and people on how to care for both the land and trees, when to harvest, how to increase their output without harming the land, and how to provide adequate nutrition without the use of harmful chemicals. She undertakes pesticide testing, acidity tests, and several other tests to ensure that the finished items are of the greatest quality. Because her products are handcrafted and artisanal, these products appeal to culinary art connoisseurs.
Producing Lebanese products combining tradition with excellence
Her first proud product was vinegar, which she had the opportunity to produce after meeting one of the best non-commercial grape farmers, who provided her with grade-A grapes at a fair price. Quality over quantity is her motto. She constantly goes on a trip to locate items that are harvested and farmed in the greatest possible conditions, such as good soil, good temperature, and good technique. Following the success of her initial product, she had the fortitude to expand her product range to include jam and pomegranate molasses. She is certain that all of her goods are “Clean”, additive-free, and chemical-free.
Zadd was born!
In 2019, amid Lebanon’s chaos, Reem established her company Zadd, which depicts the meaning of food supply and growth in Arabic, and set up in place a well-articulated business strategy to start launching different agronomical businesses.
Her first line of products was launched afterward in the name of Droubna, meaning "our paths", referring to her family’s agricultural history and legacy, as well as crossing paths with customers in this journey in the prairie.
Reem roams like a sand deer between villages in search of the greatest raw materials; she never settles for obtaining everything from a single area. Her diligent study for the greatest goods resulted in her becoming an expert in that industry. Reem’s objective is to share true Lebanese cuisine with the whole world.
It takes two to tango
In 2020, Reem joined hands with her daughter Zeinab Haidar, who just left her work in the corporate world to take Droubna to the next level. Zeinab, with her educational background in Mechanical Engineering from AUB, brought her much-needed operational and technical skills to enhance the production phases and add value to Droubna’s processes.