Since our founding in 1999, we committed to the shawarma as the centerpiece of our menu. That will never change. With shawarma, we share a common history. A shared love of the most desirable sandwich in the Arab world and a token of the tradition, generosity and good taste of our people.
What makes Shawarmer unique is our drive to make the perfect shawarma. To take a traditional street food and through innovation, creativity and experimentation, constantly modernize and interpret shawarma with new flavors and sauces and variations in wraps and sandwich styles.
What started with the now famous “Shawarmer’s Plate” has evolved time and again over the years. Just as our customers’ tastes have evolved and changed. Our chefs travel the world exploring new ways to surprise our customers with chicken sandwiches presented in creative new ways and with a variety of flavor. The attractive names of our meals indicate the ingredients and the way they are presented, like “Arabo” our Arabic sharing plate, “Shat’shaweesh” which is a spicy Shawarma, and “Bites” which is 6 pieces of small Shawarma sandwiches.
Our dedication to the modern shawarma is equaled by our commitment to using only the highest quality, fresh and natural ingredients. It’s a cornerstone of the Shawarmer experience that enables us to maintain absolute consistency in flavor in our homemade style sauces and marinades while ensuring the highest quality of meat in our cones that our customers expect and demand.
From our founding mission to spread joy and happiness through our shared love of shawarma, we have grown to more than 150 restaurants and counting. As Shawarmer continues to grow and evolve, our customers can be sure of two things: The beloved shawarma will always be the hero of our menu. And our customers can always expect more surprises in new Shawarmer flavours, sauces, ingredients and sandwich styles we offer.
Commitment to Excellence Starts with “Fresh & Natural”
Our dedication to the modern shawarma is equalled by our commitment to using only the highest quality, fresh and natural ingredients, which is in such high demand by our younger Saudi customers.
It’s a cornerstone of the Shawarmer experience. It enables us to maintain the highest level of consistency in flavour in our handmade sauces and marinades while ensuring the highest quality of meat in our cones that our customers expect and demand.
Equally important, our dedication to fresh and natural is the foundation of food quality and product integrity across every menu item in all of our restaurants.
This commitment starts with our approach to sourcing while integrating all aspects of our approach to food handling and preparation.
Where possible, we seek out local partners to source our products. When local partners that meet our supplier requirements are not available, the Shawarmer chefs travel the world seeking out partners who share our values for excellence and have a clearly demonstrated ability to meet our rigorous supply chain management requirements.
Our food handling and preparation is key to maintain freshness, quality and consistency of every product, every time. For example, the Shawarma “skewer” doesn’t last for more than 3 hours before being replaced.
Innovative Foods has invested heavily in the most advanced food preparation technologies in our central processing kitchen as well in all our restaurant locations. Our meals get prepared in front of our customers with the use of a sophisticated chopping device that guarantees quality and consistency every time our Shawarmar meals are being prepared.
This is all supported by thousands of hours of annual training in food handling and preparation techniques for our more than 1,200 employees as well as the redesign of our kitchens to create an open and transparent food preparation process in full view of our customers.
The Customer Experience … Our Mission to Create Saudi’s Most Loved Brand
We talk to tens of thousands of customers every day through multiple touchpoints. We talk in their language and on their terms about what matters most to them. We talk to our customers in our stores, online and in social media.
More important, we genuinely listen. And we learn. We apply what we learn in our commitment to continuous improvement. Improvement in customer service, accessibility and convenience. The evolution of our menu and product offering. The places where our customers want us to be to serve them.
This deep and genuine relationship we have nurtured over the years, particularly with the Saudi youth market, helps us continue to evolve and grow the Shawarmer brand while improving all aspects of our business.
It’s inspired new menu items, such as our best-selling Arabo. Led to new technologies implemented in our restaurants that that improve customer service and convenience. Some examples include automated ordering and payment systems, mobile kiosks, and new chillers with fresh, ready-to-eat salads, deserts and juices that complement the shawarma experience.
Customer feedback also resulted to the creation of a fully open and transparent kitchen and food prep process. And we are testing new robotic food cutting technology that promotes greater consistency in volume of meat across every sandwich.
Our customers value our ongoing and authentic engagement. They recognize we are listening to them and responding to their needs, which is so important to our goal of being Saudi’s most beloved food brand.
That’s another reason why with Shawarmer we are confident we hit on a business formula that will help propel our continued growth and expansion across the Kingdom in a hot food industry market that is expected to nearly double in size over the next 5 years.
The Result of Authentic Customer Engagement & Listening
The latest available independent brand health data speaks volumes about the depth of our customer relationships.
While the shawarma market in Saudi is highly competitive, data shows that Shawarma has earned 96% total brand awareness.
47% of people surveyed rank Shawarma as their most preferred shawarma fast food brand, more than double the next highest-ranking restaurant chain.
In addition to taste, some of the most common Shawarmer attributes noted by consumers comparing Saudi shawarma restaurants included cleanliness, trustworthy food quality.