Trendsetting central: Dubai key market for healthy snacking products to capture Middle East – Temole
Temole is best known for its range of healthy chips made from nuts and vegetables, form almond chips to avocado chips, and most recently emerged as a finallist in the Best Plant-based Product category of the Gulfood Innovation Awards 2023 for its Cashew Kale Wave Puffs.
The firm already has presence in various markets globally including several countries in the Asia Pacific region such as Singapore and Japan, but for the Middle Eastern region it has chosen to conquer Dubai as a city first as it believes this is the most effective strategy for this region.
“Dubai can be considered the trendsetter of the Middle Eastern market in many ways, including when it comes to food and beverage trends,” Stanley Cayari, Business Development Manager at Temole’s Middle Eastern representative Atlantic Foods told FoodNavigator-Asia at the recent Gulfood 2023 show.
“Temole first entered the market with a strong focus on keto snacks, and although now there is more focus on snacks being healthy [instead of just keto], even back then when the keto trend started it started in Dubai then only spread across the Middle East.
“So gaining a foothold here and establishing the trade here for healthy snacking products is important, as once recognised in Dubai then the other markets in the region like Saudi Arabia and Qatar and Bahrain all will follow."
Cayari also highlighted that healthy snacking in the region has evolved to focus on the integration of superfoods as key ingredients, so as to maximise the nutritional benefits gotten from an already healthy segment of foods.
“Superfoods are seen as an extra-effective means of obtaining additional nutritional benefits,” he said.
“One such example is kale, which is known to have a lot of nutrients such as vitamins C and K, beta-carotene and antioxidants, which we used in the Cashew Kale Wave Puffs shortlisted for the awards.
“These snacks are also oven-baked, not fried, and are gluten-free, non-soy and non-GMO.”
Crunching down on APAC
Temole has also gained a significant following in APAC markets such as Australia and Japan, riding on rising healthy snacking trends in these countries.
“Our internal research has shown that healthy snacking is a category ripe for growth in APAC markets as well,” he added.
“Consumers are keen to have their feel of snacks, but are also getting increasingly aware of the need to make healthier choices so are on the lookout for options that they can choose with less guilt.
“So we have been developing various other such products, one of which we consider our third-generation products – pistachio sticks, which look like just sticks but can provide that extra crunch for consumers who snack for this mouthfeel.
“Japan is one of our largest markets where we will be launching this, as well as other Asian markets such as Singapore and Malaysia.”
