Finding peace through chocolate
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 6 March 2026
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rahul Tandon talks to a man whose family chocolate business – founded by his father in Syria in the 1980s - was destroyed by war. His family was ripped apart and he had to flee, via a refugee camp in Lebanon, to Canada where he resettled and re-launched the business.
Today, it’s thriving, enjoying global sales. The company is called Peace by Chocolate, and our guest, Tareq Hadhad, is its founder and CEO.
Presenter: Rahul Tandon Producer: Ahmed Adan
If you'd like to get in touch with the team, our email address is businessdaily@bbc.co.uk
Business Daily is the home of in-depth audio journalism devoted to the world of money and work. From small startup stories to big corporate takeovers, global economic shifts to trends in technology, we look at the key figures, ideas and events shaping business.
Each episode is a 17-minute, daily deep dive into a single topic, featuring expert analysis and the people at the heart of the story.
Recent episodes explore the boom in weight-loss drugs, why bond markets are so powerful, China's property bubble, and Gen Z's experience of the current job market.
We also feature in-depth interviews with company founders and some of the world's most prominent CEOs. These include Google's Sundar Pichai, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, CEO of Canva Melanie Perkins, and the CEO of Starbucks, Brian Niccol.
(Picture: Tareq Hadhad. Credit: Tareq Hadhad)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Hello, I'm Rahul Tandon, and welcome to meet the founders from Business Daily on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:13.0 | This is where we speak to innovators around the world about the ideas, risks and realities of starting a business. |
| 0:21.1 | Today I'm talking to a man whose family chocolate business, |
| 0:24.4 | founded by his father in Syria in the 1980s, was destroyed by the Civil War. |
| 0:30.1 | My father was counting down to death. |
| 0:31.7 | My siblings were out of schools. |
| 0:33.5 | Everyone was living in a depression that I really felt that they were not going to come out of it. |
| 0:37.4 | And yet he bounced back, resettling in Canada and re-launching the business there. |
| 0:42.3 | Chocolate doesn't know language, doesn't know culture, doesn't know background, doesn't know faith. |
| 0:47.0 | It's very universal. It's like music. |
| 0:48.8 | Everyone understands it. |
| 0:49.9 | They might taste it differently. |
| 0:51.0 | They might have different preferences. |
| 0:52.6 | That's Tarek Hadad, a survivor and the CEO of Peace Buy Chocolate here on Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:03.3 | Let's take you back to 1986 because that was when Tarek's father, Isam, started his chocolate business in Damascus. |
| 1:11.5 | Isam was a medical engineering graduate and chocolate making well initially, it was just a hobby. |
| 1:17.1 | He named his business Haddad chocolate. |
| 1:19.7 | His son, Tadr, takes up the story. |
| 1:22.1 | My family did not have a history in entrepreneurship. |
| 1:25.3 | Most of my family members are, either doctors, judges, |
| 1:28.8 | engineers, dentists, no really chose entrepreneurship as a path for their life. And even my dad, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.