The response from the UAE has been phenomenal. Today, the UAE is no longer just an export market for us; it is the strategic anchor of our international operations, contributing nearly a third of our global business.

 

When we first entered the UAE, frozen food largely dominated the retailer aisles. The chiller space was limited and largely dominated by categories like Milk, Yoghurt, Cheese & beverages. We launched parotas – fresh & short shelf life in the chilled section and we saw good traction.  We spent more time with retailers and understood what consumers were looking for and worked with them to build the category further. We expanded into batter, introduced Chapati, idiyappam and other products, we continue to grow the category even today, with new batter variants such as Protein, Multigrain & Ragi batters, and newer categories such as Fresh clean label tortillas, fresh chutneys and sambar and Protein chapati.

 

The response we received in those early days has continued to this day and has encouraged us to keep expanding what we offer in the UAE. Nearly two-thirds of our target consumer base here is now open to buying fresh, packaged batter. With a diverse consumer base that includes affluent local Arabs, multicultural expat communities and global tourists, we have been able to build a strong position in the category and grow our UAE market share by approximately 500 basis points year-on-year.

 

We are witnessing a profound demographic shift. COVID was an important catalyst for this change. It increased health consciousness and prompted more consumers to start reading ingredient labels and paying closer attention to what they were putting into their bodies.

Younger consumers, particularly Gen Z, are taking this even further. They are more discerning about nutrition, increasingly track their macros and are more likely to read the back of the pack before making a purchase. Social media has also played a major role in increasing awareness. Whistleblowers, food activists and conversations around eating right travel quickly across markets, creating a spillover effect and making consumers more aware of food quality and ingredients.

 

 The UAE has also transitioned from a transient workforce population into highly established, settled, long-term family households that treat the region as home. When you make a country your permanent home and start raising children here, your relationship with food changes. You naturally demand absolute transparency about what goes onto your family's dinner table.

 

This is also where I believe the traditional supply-and-demand equation is being challenged. We believe that “Supply Creates Demand”. When you introduce a genuinely new proposition or category that solves a real consumer need, you can create demand that did not previously exist. That has been a big part of iD’s journey. We have introduced newer formats and products, all clean label & affordable, and in doing so, have seen consumers adopt categories that were not necessarily part of their existing shopping habits. Homemade staples like batter & chapati for instance. This shift has triggered a massive evolution in buying habits over the last five years. Previously, a long shelf life was universally celebrated as a convenience. Today, more discerning shoppers are placing greater value on freshness, simpler ingredients and transparency. Consumers want "convenience with confidence"; they lead busy, fast-paced lives and require quick meal solutions, but they also do not want to compromise on the quality of what they eat. They want the convenience of ready-to-cook meals, with standards that are closer to what they would expect from a home kitchen.

 

UAE consumers are becoming more conscious of what goes into their food, paying closer attention to ingredients and labels while seeking fresh, convenient options. 

At iD Fresh Food, we see this as an opportunity to make every day cooking simpler without taking away from the experience of a fresh, home-cooked meal. We take care of the time-consuming preparation such as soaking, grinding and fermenting, so families can still enjoy fresh food at home with less effort.

 

Clean label is also a basic standard for us. That means no preservatives, no artificial colours, no colouring agents, no artificial flavours, no emulsifiers, no stabilisers, no raising agents, no anti-caking agents, no soda and no chemicals. We use only ingredients you would find in your own kitchen, with nothing extra added. This standard also applies to every ingredient that goes into our products.

 

Additionally, Consumers are looking for everyday foods that offer added nutritional value, which is why we developed a specialised protein range for the GCC, including a protein batter with 15g of protein in two idlis and protein chapatis with 11g of protein in two chapatis. At the same time, we are adapting our portfolio to local tastes with products such as Zaatar Paratha and Peri Peri Parotta. We have also introduced fresh, clean-label tortillas that are sold chilled rather than ambient, helping us avoid the stabilisers typically used in shelf-stable alternatives.

 

For us, the direction of the category is clear. Consumers want to know what they are eating, but they also want freshness, convenience, nutrition and products that suit their tastes. That is where we see the biggest opportunity for fresh food in the UAE and rest of GCC.

 

People often look for a catch, wondering how we scale a zero-preservative model. The secret is that we don't treat our factories like chemical processing plants; we treat them as giant home kitchens, just with larger, custom-engineered equipment designed to replicate traditional home cooking and natural fermentation cycles under ultra-hygienic conditions

Because we refuse to use artificial shelf-life extenders, our entire business is a race against time. Technology plays a critical role here. We use demand prediction and are increasingly integrating AI into our forecasting and planning to understand what each market and retailer will need. 

 

We run a strict zero-inventory model driven by highly accurate forecasting to ensure we only produce what will sell that day. Across our seven factories and 45 distribution centres, there is no conventional storage model. Products are cross-docked from large vans into smaller delivery vehicles, enabling daily replenishment and continuous stock rotation rather than sitting in warehouses.

 

Speed is a core value for us. While a regular FMCG product may operate on a much longer supply window, our products need to move from production to the store within 24 hours. Once produced, our products must move immediately. We operate a highly disciplined, temperature-controlled cold chain that maintains a constant chilled environment from our kitchen to the retail shelf. This allows us to safely manage a short, natural shelf life of just 4 to 7 days.

 

Packaging innovation is another important part of this model. We work closely with packaging vendors to create specialised packaging with technical specifications unique to our use case. The objective is to protect the product and maintain the required oxygen and moisture transmission properties without having to put preservatives into the food.

We also go back to the very source of our ingredients. Often, raw materials like flour, spices, or oil are pre-treated with preservatives before they ever reach a food factory. We audit our suppliers relentlessly and require them to customize basic raw materials to our strict chemical-free standards, ensuring that when we say "zero preservatives," it is the absolute truth.

 

The decision to sit for a live polygraph test came from a place of deep responsibility. As a food brand, when you enter someone’s kitchen and feed their family, your honesty must be absolute. Today's consumers are naturally skeptical of corporate promises because they have been misled by marketing buzzwords so many times. We wanted to prove that our clean-label commitment is an uncompromised truth, not a marketing gimmick.

So, I decided to do something radical. I strapped myself to a lie detector machine at IIM Bangalore and underwent a live, 30-minute polygraph test in front of over 1,000 business leaders, investors, and media. They asked me tough, raw, and unfiltered questions about our supply chain, our ingredients, and our business ethics.

 

It was a high-stakes, nerve-wracking experience, but it sent a powerful message: if we are confident enough to print our minimal ingredient list on the absolute front of our packaging, we must be honest enough to stand by those ingredients under the strictest scientific scrutiny. It proved to our consumers that when we promise "zero chemicals and zero preservatives," we mean it with absolute personal and professional integrity.

 

Looking ahead, the opportunities in the UAE are massive. The country possesses world-class digital and quick-commerce capabilities, along with an advanced end-to-end chilled ecosystem that works particularly well for a fresh food business like ours. Because of the climatic conditions, the infrastructure across the supply chain is built around maintaining chilled environments, from backend support and distribution through to retailers and stores. This enables reliable availability, rapid replenishment and efficient movement of fresh products from production to shelf. In a business where hours matter, the ability to deliver highly perishable, fresh products directly to a consumer’s doorstep within minutes is a complete game-changer. 

 

There is also a major opportunity to bring our clean-label philosophy into other daily food categories that have historically been dominated by shelf-stable, preservative-heavy products.

 

But managing this model comes with serious, quiet challenges. Operating a zero-preservative, cold-chain-dependent business in a hot, import-reliant region is incredibly complex. There is absolutely zero room for operational delay. We also face external, unpredictable pressures like recent geopolitical tensions that tripled our shipping costs.

Ultimately, our biggest daily challenge is what I call the "affordable purity" dilemma. It is relatively easy to make premium, organic, expensive food for a niche market. The real challenge and our core mission is maintaining an uncompromising, chemical-free supply chain while keeping our fresh food affordable for everyday families.