The concept of eating well has changed over the past few years – our focus is slowly shifting from rich and elaborate meals to healthy food of high quality. As more reports come out that describe the effects that our diets have on us, we are slowly realising that we are indeed what we eat. The new NGS website offers a variety of healthy alternatives for things we eat every day and introduces products previously hard to find in Egypt. Tarek El Gammal started NGS, Nature's Gifts Stores, in 2009 because he wanted to create a platform to encourage people to a healthier way of living. “I started in Hurghada because there is a large foreign community that is interested to live a healthy life. They have made the choice to live in a clean environment, close to the sea and are more used to the concept of healthy food. It was a great opportunity to test out my concepts on the Egyptian market," El Gammal told The Daily News Egypt. “I opened a store and filled it with a variety of products; from dried and fresh fruits and vegetables, to natural cosmetics and whole grains and pulses," El Gammal explains. “Besides just carrying our diverse line of products, we also offered a lot of information on the healing properties of the individual items and people were very receptive to our concept." If the idea of healthy food makes you think of nuts and berries only, NGS may surprise you. “Healthy food can certainly include meat, chicken and fish," El Gammal said, “as long as the quality of the products is high and they have no added chemicals and hormones. At NGS we carry wonderful meat, great salmon and lots of other, healthy proteins in our range." After a while El Gammal was ready to bring the concept of NGS to Cairo. “One of the things that became clear is that people do not always have the time to come and visit the store, they were happy with the option to have their purchases delivered. It allowed me to cater to clients in El Gouna and Sahl Hashish as well, but it also created the need to design a platform for people to have access to all the information about the products and the possible health benefits they have," he explained. So the logical step was to let the NGS evolve into an online business where people can browse through the products and learn about their benefits, place their orders and receive them at their homes at their convenience. Trying to find high quality products is not easy, and El Gammal refuses to compromise on what he sells through NGS: “I realised that all the best quality products that are grown in Egypt are exported abroad, leaving us here with the lower grade produce. The next logical step was to create my own brands to make sure I can guarantee the level of quality that I want to offer my clients and eat myself." The NGS brand incorporates imported, all natural products of high quality that are grown and produced with a minimal use of chemicals. NGS also has a range of fresh produce that is locally grown with a minimal use of chemicals. El Gammal founded a second brand, Kheir Misr, that incorporates locally produced products of very high quality that are completely natural and have not been exposed to any chemicals. They range from fresh fruits and vegetables, to honey, dates, brown rice, brown sugar and flax seeds, to name but a few. The NGS website is up and running and offers their delivery service all over Cairo and in Hurghada and the surrounding area. Eating well and healthy has suddenly become a lot easier.
