Nooz

For many, coffee is a daily ritual. But what if this beverage could do more than just deliver that caffeine kick? That’s exactly the premise behind Nooz – a brand that is setting out to enhance coffee with clean, functional ingredients to create a jitter-free, long-lasting energy boost.

Co-founders Timur El Ait and Bahij Haloumi identified a gap in the market for a coffee that delivered both great taste and long-lasting energy without the crash. Drawing on his decade-long expertise in coffee, Timur developed a unique formula, which Bahij, with his background in biohacking and sports nutrition, strongly believed in. Together, they created a standout product.

Knowing that conventional coffee often led to jitters and crashes, Timur started looking for an alternative – and found it in L-theanine, a natural green tea extract known for promoting calm and focus. “This natural compound is a green tea extract and once you add it to the coffee, it eliminates jittery effects,” says Timur.

MCT oil was also included, which is an ingredient popular in the fitness community for its brain-boosting and energy-sustaining properties.

Unlike traditional energy drinks loaded with sugar and artificial additives, Nooz offers a clean, functional alternative. It’s free from sugar, lactose, gluten and GMOs as well as the typical caffeine crash. Bahij, coming from a sports background, immediately saw the potential. “When we started crunching the numbers, I saw there was a gap in the market because it’s not going to be positioned as just an energy drink. This is a functional beverage. It’s the first clean form of energy that you’re going to see in the region,” explains Bahij.

Currently offering three products – original black coffee, hazelnut and mocha – the co-founders reveal there are plans to expand these flavours, with Spanish latte on the horizon along with seasonal specials.

Nooz’s participation in the Spinneys Local Business Incubator Programme has “accelerated our brand development,” says Bahij.

Because You Care

Olivia Bou Antoun probably never imagined that her journey into parenthood would lead her to launch a sustainable home care brand. But during the COVID-19 lockdown in Dubai, a seed of an idea was born.“I was a mom of two young children, just six months and two years old at the time. Like everyone, I had time to slow down – and I started to check all my household products. One day, I started reading the label of my detergent, and realised I didn’t recognise any of the ingredients,” Olivia recalls.

Concerned about what chemicals were being applied to her childrens’ skin, Olivia began researching and soon discovered that many common household cleaning products contained toxic ingredients. Unable to find an alternative on the market that she was happy to use, Olivia decided to create her own.

“I started creating it in my own kitchen,” says Olivia and adds, “I used traditional French Marseille soap my grandmother used, and combined it with bicarbonate and soda ash – just three biodegradable ingredients. And after many trials, I found a recipe that worked, which was toxin-free and biodegradable.”

Encouraged by her results, Olivia launched Because You Care in March 2022, debuting her detergent at a market hosted by the Alliance Française. “People were telling me they had been searching for a product like this in the UAE for a long time.” Since then, her products have been available for purchase online, with a convenient subscription model.

But, this wasn’t enough. From the beginning, Olivia had a long-term vision. “Ever since I started this this project, I wanted to apply for the Spinneys Local Business Incubator Programme – and wanted to win. I was waiting until I felt confident and had a strong customer base.”

"All her online clients, she says, were also asking when her products would be available on Spinneys’ shelves. And now, this dream will soon come to fruition.

Looking ahead, she plans to expand the product range in the household category, with plenty of ideas of where the brand can go. And the name ‘Because You Care’ perfectly describes the brand’s mission. “I wanted a name that was not limited to detergent because I knew that one day I would expand the range. That’s when I asked myself, ‘Why am I doing this? What is my mission behind this?’ My mission is to protect my children’s health because I care about them – so if you are like me, you will do the same – because you care.”"

Maraqah

For Donia Elkhouli, launching Maraqah – which means ‘stocks’ or ‘broths’ in Arabic – was all about the ideal of food being more than just sustenance and related to heritage. “Growing up, I would see the effort that my grandmothers put into their cooking… they would make their broths from scratch.”

During her maternity leave, she committed to doing the same. However, once she returned to full-time work, Donia faced a challenge: home-made broths took hours to prepare. As early as 2015, when she lived in the UK, Donia began experimenting with stock paste recipes until she found the perfect balance. By 2018, she moved to Dubai, bringing her stock paste with her and when she started blogging about her recipes, her followers wanted to know more about her broth. After organising a focus group, she knew she had a viable product.

With a background in corporate and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), Donia realised that if Maraqah was going to succeed, it needed to be a fully scalable business and she had to achieve a long shelf life without preservatives. So, over the next three years Donia worked on solving this problem. In July 2023, Maraqah officially launched. She says proudly, “The flavour profile is exactly the same as what you would get if you were making it at home. You don’t end up having to worry about any toxic items – that has no business being in our food.”

Her next step towards the Spinneys Local Business Incubator Programme was not as smooth as one might think. “I don’t know if anybody noticed, but I actually applied before I even started selling it – and under a different brand name,” she says. Donia didn’t get through the first time, but she used the rejection as motivation and worked on refining the product. “I took that as a challenge and decided that I’m going to perfect this,” she says. This time, Maraqah earned a spot in the programme.

She has plans for the future, like any other business owner. “If Maraqah succeeds, I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of scope to expand outside the UAE as well. I want Maraqah to be the new household name for stocks and broths in the Middle East.”

Project Chaiwala

The concept for Project Chaiwala was born from co-founders’ Ahmed Kazim and Justin Joseph’s own experience. While working in consulting, they would often find themselves discussing their next big idea. “We would always talk about our next business after we left corporate life, and we would always chat over karak. And that’s where we thought there was a huge opportunity to create a product that was native to both the Indian and Arab community,” says Justin.

The duo’s journey began with extensive research, including a trip to India, where they spent time wandering different tea estates. By September 2018, Project Chaiwala officially launched at Cinema Akil, an independent arthouse cinema in Alserkal Avenue. Since then, Project Chaiwala has expanded across various locations and is often a staple at food festivals and markets.

While their initial focus was on physical locations, the brand has since diversified into retail. What Project Chaiwala offers is a range of products including loose-leaf tea, bottled karak and sachets for instant teas. Ahmed reveals, “This was always a stream we wanted to introduce, but the pandemic expedited that process for us.”

Project Chaiwala’s entry into the Spinneys Local Business Incubator Programme was a strategic move to ensure a strong retail presence without getting lost in a sea of international brands. “As a home-grown brand, it was very important that when we launch this product to the masses, we launch it the right way,” says Justin. He adds that Spinneys was top-of-mind for this launch because of its positioning, and the support provided as part of the incubator programme.

One of the standout aspects of Project Chaiwala is its distinctive branding – bright colours, bold fonts and eye-catching graphics. Justin says, “The branding is inspired by the urban culture of the UAE – of how we see it. It’s about tapping into the third-culture experience that we all have growing up in Dubai.”

With a strong foothold in the UAE, Project Chaiwala is looking beyond its borders. “The goal was always to export the brand outside the UAE,” says Ahmed. “We’re working on multiple deals to export this culture, this product and our tradition out of the UAE. And when it comes to future products, we have two additional categories that we're looking into, which are chai pods and chai concentrates.”

Shake Your Plants

Hydration is a trend for 2025 and capitalising on that are co-founders of vegan, plant-based functional beverage company Shake Your Plants, Justine Dampt and Lia Coelho. 

Justine, a French entrepreneur and certified nutritionist, and Lia, a Portuguese brand strategist, are both on a mission to make hydration part of everyone’s wellness routine. 

The duo’s journey to launching Shake Your Plants has been deeply personal. Between them, Justine reveals, they have been through seven pregnancies and heartbreaking losses, including the passing of Justine’s baby daughter at birth. This solidified their belief in the impact of environmental factors, additives and preservatives on overall health. That’s when they decided to do something about it. Their idea was born from the concept of using water – something everyone drinks daily – as the route to wellness. This led to the creation of functional, plant-based hydration powders three years ago.

What sets Shake Your Plants apart from its competitors are its formulations, which are 100 per cent natural and made from real fruit and superfoods. The Kombucha Plus line, for example, features tea that has been brewed in the mountains of Taiwan. The hydration range has been crafted from organic blueberries and coconut water and can replenish key electrolytes without the use of phosphates, to allow for people with kidney problems to use the product.

Since the duo are passionate about the environment at large, sustainability is at the core of their operations. Shake Your Plants uses ‘lost resources’, that is, ‘ugly’ fruits and vegetables that would otherwise go to waste but are full of nutritional value. They admit their packaging is an ongoing journey in sustainability but currently uses less than

1% of the plastic found in a typical single-use plastic water bottle.

The duo is extremely grateful for being selected as winners of the programme. Justine says, “In the UAE, as a small company founder, you always look at retail with big stars in your eyes. But people don’t realise what it takes to actually enter retail. So the Spinneys Local Business Incubator Programme is a unique proposition.”

Emphasising that the process so far has been extremely smooth, the co-founders are also working on a pipeline of new products and are closing a round of investment to deploy it.

Bumblebee

The inspiration for Bumblebee – a home-grown business that supplies ready-made frozen meal plans for babies and toddlers – came from a moment in early 2020 while 27-year-old Qadreya Al Awadhi was babysitting her friend’s son just before the pandemic. She recalls turning over a jar of baby food to check the ingredients, and then realising it was produced months before the baby had even been born. “That’s when I realised there was no fresh, healthy baby food available in the market.” Eventually, she realised she had a viable business idea.

It’s important to note that her approach to baby nutrition goes beyond fresh ingredients. Each dish has been created using the expertise of a paediatric nutritionist and a developmental specialist to ensure all the meals have the macro nutrients a child could need, and all of Bumblebee’s meals are cooked from scratch (including the sauces).

Equally, she has been committed to creating meals that are not bland, rather those that include diverse flavours and nutrients – think of pears, spinach, spices, sesame and more. “This way, we introduce the child to different flavours as well as common allergens – such as sesame – from an early age,” she says.

Bumblebee sources most of its vegetables locally, including from Qadreya’s own farm. For ingredients that don’t grow in the UAE, such as strawberries and apples, she sources from international suppliers. Even the meats used in Bumblebee’s meals come from local farms. 

This young Emirati entrepreneur has now launched what she claims is a world-first: baby biscuits made with bone broth. “I’m always finding ways to innovate and to try something new that hasn’t been done. I searched everywhere, but all I can find are bone broth biscuits for dogs,” she says.

For Qadreya, the journey with Bumblebee has been marked by many proud moments. One highlight was being selected for the UN Women’s programme and also appearing on Shark Tank. But if she had to pick a favourite milestone, she says, it’s qualifying for the Spinneys Local Business Incubator Programme.

Good Candy Co.

When Rabail Ali moved to Dubai two years ago, she noticed that healthy candy alternatives were virtually non-existent. “I’m very passionate about health and fitness. So, to me this didn’t make sense. There are so many healthy products in every single category – so why not in candy? I made it my mission to really solve that pain point and that’s how Good Candy Co. came into being,” she says.

Launched online in July 2024, Good Candy Co. offers sweets that are naturally sweetened with date sugar. “I wanted to take away the guilt of consuming candy,” she says.

The brand currently offers two varieties: Fruity Bears, packed with sweet, natural flavours, and Sour Stars, for those who love a tangy twist. But this is just the beginning: Rabail reveals that she is working on expanding its product line to include lollipops and other wholesome treats.

The journey from concept to creation was a rapid one. Within months, Rabail perfected the recipe, sourced ingredients, as well as developed the branding and packaging. She’s extremely proud of what she considers an important milestone. “When my children said they didn’t want candy from the store anymore and said they wanted my version, I knew that was the real turning point,” she says proudly.

What was a critical component of her product’s ingredients was securing high-quality date sugar with the lowest possible glycemic index to prevent sugar spikes. While the date sugar is sourced from France, the rest of the ingredients, packaging and design are all sourced locally.

Recognising the potential of the Spinneys Local Business Incubator Programme, Rabail applied in August 2024. “Spinneys is where my ideal consumer is: the mom who is looking for better options, the healthy consumer,” she says.

For aspiring food entrepreneurs, she offers simple, but crucial, advice: “Honestly, just go for your dream. Don’t overthink it. There are many people who will help you. And that’s one of the things that I want to do… if Good Candy Co. grows in the way I think it will, I want to help other food entrepreneurs. Just take the next step and doors will open.”