You’ve heard of cake before, but get ready for cake-pops! They are the hottest treats in B-Town and you definitely need to try out these sweet delights as soon as you can! Our treat to you is very Popilicious.
Popilicious is a Bahraini business that caters to people with a sweet tooth. They specialize in creating and customizing various types of miniature sweets, such as cookies and popsicles, but their main specialty is cake-pops.
Launched by Nasreen Ashkanani who was previously a Product Marketing Manager at a telecommunication company, she accidentally fell in love with cake-pops when she stumbled across some images while surfing the net. Too excited about the idea, the night after she discovered cake-pops, Nasreen immediately started tackling her new goal, and turned into a “molding, shaping, and decorating machine” as she puts it.
Nasreen founded Popilicious by combining her love for arts and crafts with her product development career – this enabled her to perfectly merge her creativity and desire to create something from scratch. Nasreen states that she didn’t intend for her cake-pop craft to take off, “I was just trying them out and shared them during events with family and friends. I wasn’t expecting them to become popular, but then people began requesting samples”. But accepting one customized request led to a dozen more, and it eventually ventured into a business project.
Soon after, Nasreen decided to fully embrace Popilicious. This prompted her to quit her job and transform her side business of customizing edible miniature sweets into a commercial one. The journey started by establishing a kids cafe in 2016, where the concept would be kids walking in and readily take on the fun challenge of painting and customizing cake-pops. After much consideration, Nasreen focused on customized little sweets reflecting themes or messages of the customers regardless of age.
Nasreen also attributes her success to the help and support she received from Tamkeen. “They helped me in two ways,” she shares, “One, through their rent subsidy by renting a unit in Riyadat Mall. Two, with their Business Development schemes.” There has also been a mentee in their first mentorship program by the name of Mowgli that was run over 12 months.
According to Nasreen, Tamkeen’s different support programs have offered her the valuable support she needs to take her first steps into the business market and outside of the safe boundaries of her kitchen.
If you’d like to get your hands on some Popilicious treats, you can pay them a visit at Riyadat Mall, or check them out on Instagram.
