Back in 1971, the Njaim family started a small Middle-Eastern specialty shop on the west side of Canada's Capital city, Ottawa.
As immigrants themselves, the family wanted to open a store that offered authentic Lebanese products to provide other local Middle Eastern families a taste of home. What started as a small shop evolved into a specialty grocery store that offers over 3,000 products from around the world.
Still today, Mid East Food Center is family owned and operated by brother and sister, Elias and Margo Njaim. They have a team of more than 70 employees and offer a full line of nuts and beans, cheese and olives, herbs and spices, coffees and teas, fresh specialty pastries, meats from their old-fashioned butcher shop, and much more. Mid East Food Centre has several lines of products that are made in-house without any preservatives, such as their famous hummus, garlic sauce, and tubule, which are staples for any Lebanese meal. The store's focus on quality is what sets them apart from other local supermarkets.
In 2018, Mid East Food Centre decided to increase the hot food offerings at the supermarket. They planned to add a lunch bar and expand their ready-made options, serving items such as cheese bread, meat pies, falafel, kafta BBQ, shawarma, and rotisserie chicken. In order to add so many different options to their menu, Margo Njaim began to explore the market for more efficient cooking equipment that could help them cook quicker and gain more consistent results. That is when she and her team first discovered the RATIONAL SelfCookingCenter®.
