Podcast: Syrian Chocolate Maker Joins Ranks Of Cod-Fathers And Code-Fathers
Host Mark Leger has been absorbed by books about successful Maritime entrepreneurs over the past few months, interviewing the authors of books on K.C. Irving and the founders of Radian6 and Q1 Labs, companies that sold for more than a combined $1-billion in the last decade.
In this episode, Mark chats with Tareq Hadhad of Peace By Chocolate in Antigonish. Tareq and his father Isam lost the family business, a chocolate factory bombed during the war in Syria, but have since rebuilt it in Nova Scotia. Their perseverance and optimism in the face of great challenges are chronicled in a new book by Halifax journalist Jon Tattrie.
“When immigrants come to Canada, they don’t come empty. Everyone has their own skills, their own talent and their own passion, their own stories and experiences,” Tareq tells Mark. “Even though we lost everything in Syria we didn’t lose any of that. This was our intellectual property, so we lost everything in the war but they did not kill that spirit in us. They did not kill that knowledge, that skill, that talent. This is not something you lose in a war. This is something that goes with you forever until you die.”
Though they come from different countries and eras, Mark sees the same commitment and innovative spark in entrepreneurs like K.C. Irving, Brian Flood, Chris Newton, and Tareq and Isam.
Listen to Tareq’s conversation with Mark in the player above, or on your preferred podcast platform.
The Huddle “Home Office” podcast – available on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and Apple Podcast platforms – features conversations with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia community leaders, entrepreneurs, analysts and Huddle reporters about the issues and events that accelerate and enrich the growth of the region’s economy and culture.
Check out the Huddle podcast archive for more conversations about the Atlantic Canadian economy, which include feature interviews with regional leaders like Frank McKenna, Blaine Higgs, and tech entrepreneurs Marcel LeBrun and David Alston, our very first podcast guests. And please go to your favourite podcast platform, search for “Huddle Home Office” and subscribe.
RELATED PODCASTS:
- Gordon Pitts On The ‘Code-fathers’ And The Billion-Dollar Sales Of Q1 Labs And Radian6
- Donald Savoie On Why Irving Oil Is, And Always Has Been, An Underdog