{"id":77006,"date":"2025-09-21T12:51:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T12:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/77006\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T12:51:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T12:51:11","slug":"everyone-gets-the-same-amount-of-profit-share-whether-youre-the-kitchen-steward-or-the-ceo-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/77006\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Everyone gets the same amount of profit share whether you\u2019re the kitchen steward or the CEO\u2018 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eoin Cantwell was a happy man when Tipperary swept to victory in this year\u2019s All-Ireland hurling final. The Thurles native played club hurling growing up and one of the first things he did when he moved to Dubai<\/a> in 2012 was to confound the Sharjah GAA club, now one of the biggest GAA clubs in the Arab world<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Cantwell started work<\/a> in Dubai teaching English with the international education group, Sabis. He spent three years there before becoming general manager of Sharjah Wanderers, a private sports club catering primarily for the expat community. <\/p>\n

Over a six-year period, Cantwell, who has a Master\u2019s in international management and entrepreneurship from the University of Limerick, was responsible for a complete overhaul of the club\u2019s infrastructure and business model. It was a busy, time-consuming project that left him with little spare time for mundane things such as food shopping and preparing meals. <\/p>\n

As a keen sportsman, Cantwell was keen to maintain good nutritional habits but when he went looking for a company that would deliver healthy ready meals to his door, he drew a blank. It was this gap in the market that sparked the idea for Fitt Meals. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe pace of life in Dubai is extremely full-on. People come here to work and they work really hard. It\u2019s the culture. So, I knew I wasn\u2019t the only one short on time or the inclination to cook at the end of a long day,\u201d says Cantwell, who lives in the Springs community in Dubai. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had very good chefs at the club and the kitchen wasn\u2019t being used at night so it occurred to me that I had the resources at hand to test my theory that there was a market in Dubai for premium meals that were calorie and macronutrient counted and delivered fresh every few days.\u201d <\/p>\n

Cantwell started Fitt Meals in 2020 while still working at the club. Five years on, his company employs 140 people and has a fleet of 30 vans delivering around 40,000 meals a week in Dubai. Later this year Fitt will move to a purpose-built facility eight times the size of its current production unit and the company will begin serving other markets starting with Saudi Arabia in 2026. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe control everything ourselves starting with the supply chain and ending with customer deliveries. This gives us a huge competitive advantage as we\u2019re masters of our own quality and costs,\u201d Cantwell says. \u201cThe biggest opportunity here is the size of the market. Dubai is a very dense city and it\u2019s possible to service a lot of people within a very small area. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe barriers to entry have also become easier since it has become possible for companies to be 100 per cent owned by expats,\u201d he adds. \u201cThis is a very liberal move which has resulted in serious economic growth. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe UAE is also extremely fast with change. If a change in policy or infrastructure is needed, they move on it. It\u2019s frustrating to see how long it takes to get things done in Ireland by comparison. I understand the merits of a strong planning policy, but we need to find a middle ground that allows infrastructure growth without huge bureaucracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cantwell sits on an advisory board for Enterprise Ireland (EI) in the UAE and is passionate about helping Irish businesses set up in the region. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf a company doesn\u2019t know how to go about this, talking to EI and the Arab-Irish Chamber of Commerce is a good place to start,\u201d Cantwell says. \u201cI\u2019m genuinely concerned about how reliant Ireland is on FDI. It\u2019s being spoken about more now but I don\u2019t think the full message \u2013 or the real risk \u2013 is sinking in. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d love to see more focus on backing indigenous companies, especially ones trying to expand into this part of the world.\u201d <\/p>\n

Cantwell loves the vibrant, multicultural environment of Dubai and his company employs more than 20 different nationalities. \u201cThe diversity within our workforce demands a different way of communicating \u2013 in a good way \u2013 and it\u2019s really interesting to have everyone\u2019s insights,\u201d says Cantwell whose approach to running his business is based on an openness some managers would find uncomfortable. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf people don\u2019t have the full picture, it\u2019s very hard for them to make good decisions,\u201d he says. \u201cEvery week we look at the P & L and our forecasts and at the end of the month, we review how we\u2019ve done, and everyone sees the results. <\/p>\n

\u201cTen per cent of profits are split between staff ever month and everyone gets the same amount whether you\u2019re the kitchen steward or the CEO.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the people on the ground who can affect real change and drive cost savings and efficiency and if they can\u2019t see the numbers it\u2019s hard for them to understand \u2018the why\u2019. We put a lot of time into training people in financial literacy so they can read a P & L,\u201d Cantwell says. \u201cWe welcome input from everyone as to where we can improve and feed this into our quarterly strategy meetings. <\/p>\n

\u201cBefore Fitt, I would have been hesitant about being so open but I\u2019m a total convert. It brings great freedom to have open conversations in the office and this builds engagement and a great sense of collectiveness about what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a rapidly growing business and two infant sons, Cantwell doesn\u2019t have much time for hobbies, but he follows sport and plays Irish traditional music on the guitar and banjo. <\/p>\n

\u201cDubai is a very social city but you\u2019re away from your family and close friends and that can be quite challenging,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eoin Cantwell was a happy man when Tipperary swept to victory in this year\u2019s All-Ireland hurling final. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,3819,18,19,17,2213,4763,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-77006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-dubai","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-irish-abroad","14":"tag-wild-geese","15":"tag-work"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}