Symmetry principles have long been applied to the flavour puzzle. In a bottom-up approach, the variety of possible symmetry groups and symmetry breaking sectors is huge, the predictability is reduced and the number of allowed models diverges. A relatively well-motivated and more constrained framework is provided by supersymmetric theories where a discrete subgroup Gamma of a non-compact Lie group G plays the role of flavour symmetry and the symmetry breaking sector spans a coset space G/K, K being a compact subgroup of G. For a general choice of G, K, Gamma and a generic matter content, we show how to construct a minimal Kahler potential and a general superpotential, for both rigid and local N = 1 supersymmetric theories.