UAE-based value-added food manufacturing firm Global Food Industries (GFI) has made new investments worth over AED30 million ($8.16 million) to reinforce its food production capabilities and launch its first-ever cooked food line plant in Sharjah.

GFI’s injection of fresh capital covers the adoption of cutting-edge technologies and further skills enhancement of its people towards high-quality and safe food production. These investments are also in line with GFI’s growth aspirations to double its business over the next five years by strengthening its capacity to expand its product offerings and market share across various B2B and B2C segments.

“A fast-paced work environment presented a lot of households with the challenge of having little time to prepare meals at home,” said Ahmed Bayoumi, CEO of GFI. “When the Covid-19 pandemic struck, a predominantly work-from-home setup for employees and distance learning for schoolchildren, plus the potential risk from food deliveries, presented yet another challenge of having to prepare home-cooked meals three times a day.

“Such scenarios facilitated an increasingly growing trend of consumers’ preference for convenience in food preparation and rising demand for ready to heat and eat products,” Bayoumi revealed. “These trends serve as excellent opportunities for us to address the market’s need for safe, healthy, delicious and affordable cooked food products and further grow our business. Thus, investing in expanding and enhancing our production capabilities in this segment and addressing such needs certainly makes a lot of business sense for us at GFI.”

GFI’s move to boost its local production capabilities will also facilitate the company’s capacity to supply the requirements of Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) within a much shorter timeframe as it eliminates the shipping period from overseas food manufacturing facilities. It will also enable GFI to produce higher volumes per year to address the markets’ growing demand for such products.

“We at GFI are committed to bring to our consumers high quality, convenient and tasty products under our leading brands of Al Areesh and Arctic Gold,” Bayoumi added. “More importantly, these investments will certainly open up endless possibilities for us across the B2B and B2C markets and enable us to reinforce our position as market leaders in the cooked food segment.”