Eoin Cantwell was a happy man when Tipperary swept to victory in this year’s All-Ireland hurling final. The Thurles native played club hurling growing up and one of the first things he did when he moved to Dubai in 2012 was to confound the Sharjah GAA club, now one of the biggest GAA clubs in the Arab world.
Cantwell started work in Dubai teaching English with the international education group, Sabis. He spent three years there before becoming general manager of Sharjah Wanderers, a private sports club catering primarily for the expat community.
Over a six-year period, Cantwell, who has a Master’s in international management and entrepreneurship from the University of Limerick, was responsible for a complete overhaul of the club’s infrastructure and business model. It was a busy, time-consuming project that left him with little spare time for mundane things such as food shopping and preparing meals.
As a keen sportsman, Cantwell was keen to maintain good nutritional habits but when he went looking for a company that would deliver healthy ready meals to his door, he drew a blank. It was this gap in the market that sparked the idea for Fitt Meals.
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“The pace of life in Dubai is extremely full-on. People come here to work and they work really hard. It’s the culture. So, I knew I wasn’t the only one short on time or the inclination to cook at the end of a long day,” says Cantwell, who lives in the Springs community in Dubai.
“We had very good chefs at the club and the kitchen wasn’t being used at night so it occurred to me that I had the resources at hand to test my theory that there was a market in Dubai for premium meals that were calorie and macronutrient counted and delivered fresh every few days.”
Cantwell started Fitt Meals in 2020 while still working at the club. Five years on, his company employs 140 people and has a fleet of 30 vans delivering around 40,000 meals a week in Dubai. Later this year Fitt will move to a purpose-built facility eight times the size of its current production unit and the company will begin serving other markets starting with Saudi Arabia in 2026.
“We control everything ourselves starting with the supply chain and ending with customer deliveries. This gives us a huge competitive advantage as we’re masters of our own quality and costs,” Cantwell says. “The biggest opportunity here is the size of the market. Dubai is a very dense city and it’s possible to service a lot of people within a very small area.
“The barriers to entry have also become easier since it has become possible for companies to be 100 per cent owned by expats,” he adds. “This is a very liberal move which has resulted in serious economic growth.
“The UAE is also extremely fast with change. If a change in policy or infrastructure is needed, they move on it. It’s frustrating to see how long it takes to get things done in Ireland by comparison. I understand the merits of a strong planning policy, but we need to find a middle ground that allows infrastructure growth without huge bureaucracy.”
Cantwell sits on an advisory board for Enterprise Ireland (EI) in the UAE and is passionate about helping Irish businesses set up in the region.
“If a company doesn’t know how to go about this, talking to EI and the Arab-Irish Chamber of Commerce is a good place to start,” Cantwell says. “I’m genuinely concerned about how reliant Ireland is on FDI. It’s being spoken about more now but I don’t think the full message – or the real risk – is sinking in.
“I’d love to see more focus on backing indigenous companies, especially ones trying to expand into this part of the world.”
Cantwell loves the vibrant, multicultural environment of Dubai and his company employs more than 20 different nationalities. “The diversity within our workforce demands a different way of communicating – in a good way – and it’s really interesting to have everyone’s insights,” says Cantwell whose approach to running his business is based on an openness some managers would find uncomfortable.
“If people don’t have the full picture, it’s very hard for them to make good decisions,” he says. “Every week we look at the P & L and our forecasts and at the end of the month, we review how we’ve done, and everyone sees the results.
“Ten per cent of profits are split between staff ever month and everyone gets the same amount whether you’re the kitchen steward or the CEO.
“It’s the people on the ground who can affect real change and drive cost savings and efficiency and if they can’t see the numbers it’s hard for them to understand ‘the why’. We put a lot of time into training people in financial literacy so they can read a P & L,” Cantwell says. “We welcome input from everyone as to where we can improve and feed this into our quarterly strategy meetings.
“Before Fitt, I would have been hesitant about being so open but I’m a total convert. It brings great freedom to have open conversations in the office and this builds engagement and a great sense of collectiveness about what we do.”
With a rapidly growing business and two infant sons, Cantwell doesn’t have much time for hobbies, but he follows sport and plays Irish traditional music on the guitar and banjo.
“Dubai is a very social city but you’re away from your family and close friends and that can be quite challenging,” he says.
