How Rima Dates came to be:
Boussada grew up in Gardaiah, which is a city of 160,000 in the Sahara desert, in central Algeria. It’s 300 kilometers across sand to get to another city.
Boussada’s playground was his grandfather’s date palm farm.
“Date palms are my first love,” said Boussada. “I have a lot of passion for them and try to understand each variety of dates. For each variety, we have a different taste, shape, and color. I have a special relationship with this fruit. It’s a magical fruit.”
After growing up among date palms, Boussada went north to pursue his love of plants. He attended the University of Sciences and Technology in Algiers and graduated with a bachelor’s in plant biotechnology.
Immediately afterwards, he went home and started his first business, a nursery that grew a wide variety of plants and trees.
“With this business, I was very active in farmers associations, so I saw that there were huge quantities of dates that people weren’t using,” he said. “Forty percent of date production were the varieties people wanted, and 60% were other varieties. Many of them ended up as cattle feed.”
Boussada thought, with his knowledge of plants and passion for dates, that he wanted to get involved and transform those leftover dates into products people actually want to buy.
“My little sister encouraged me and helped me at first, so we started this business together. Her name is Rima and she’s also a co-owner and a co-founder of Rima Dates,” he said. “So, that’s where Rima Dates comes from.”
What Rima Dates does:
Rima Dates is in the business of transformation. It takes all the unused and low-quality dates and turns them into something delicious.
So far, Rima Dates has stuffed the dates with almonds and smothered them with high-quality chocolate. They’ve made syrup and vinegar. And the reception has been outstanding.
“We started selling the products and it was the first time Algeria had products that incorporate chocolate with dates,” said Boussada. “It was really interesting for people. What we did is give those dates a higher value and a different look.”