For a while there, macam semua benda dekat internet kena ada pistachio. Pistachio croissant, ikan keli pistachio, pistachio latte, pistachio cookies, pistachio ice cream. Buka TikTok, nampak hijau. Buka Instagram, hijau lagi. Pergi cafe pun tiba-tiba ada menu pistachio dekat mana-mana. Sampai satu tahap, kalau makanan tu tak ada pistachio, macam tak cukup syarat untuk masuk internet.
But somewhere in between all that pistachio madness, satu chocolate bar dari Dubai berjaya berubah daripada limited local dessert kepada global food phenomenon. And the interesting part isn’t simply that the chocolate tasted good. It was the combination of product design, cultural identity, scarcity, creator content and very good timing that turned something relatively small into a global obsession.
The story started in Dubai in 2021, when British-Egyptian entrepreneur Sarah Hamouda created FIX Dessert Chocolatier. The idea reportedly came from her pregnancy cravings for flavours connected to her childhood, particularly pistachio and kunafa. Working with pastry chef Nouel Catis Omamalin, she developed a chunky chocolate bar filled with pistachio cream and crispy kunafa, with tahini also part of the combination. The bar was eventually named “Can’t Get Knafeh of It.”
And sebenarnya, the product idea itself was already quite smart. FIX didn’t try to invent some completely unfamiliar flavour that nobody had ever tasted before. Chocolate was familiar. Pistachio was familiar. Kunafa was familiar, especially in the Middle East. What felt new was the way all three were brought together inside one thick, visually dramatic chocolate bar.
FIX also built the product around limited production and availability. The bars were handcrafted and released in limited quantities, which meant customers couldn’t simply walk into any supermarket and pick one up whenever they felt like it. That detail would become very important later, because scarcity wasn’t something the brand had to invent after going viral. It was already part of the experience.
At this point, though, FIX was still a relatively small Dubai chocolate business. Nobody was talking about pistachio shortages. Nobody was calling it a global trend.
Then TikTok came along.
01. The TikTok moment
In December 2023, Ukrainian creator Maria Vehera posted a TikTok of herself trying FIX’s “Can’t Get Knafeh of It”.
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