SFT Voices

Founder Journeys

Founder Journeys tells the stories of builders — the beginnings, decisions, turning points, successes and failures, and everything that happens along the way.

07stories

Restaurant Order Management

Blend

Omar Al-Luhayyan · CEO

The launch story, the team’s turning points, and how data shaped a platform built to scale — in the Kingdom and beyond.

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Healthy Date-Based Snacks

Contemporary Foods

Redwan Kayal

Bringing the natural goodness of dates into modern healthy snacks — an idea born abroad and built in Saudi Arabia.

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Direct Ordering for F&B

Order

A homegrown ordering platform for restaurants and cafés — from a pandemic-era response to more than 4,000 points of sale.

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Subscription Tech

Techrar

Ahmed Salama

Founded in 2022 to power subscription management in Saudi Arabia, built around long-term customer relationships.

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AgriTech · Soil Regeneration

Terraxy

Prof. Himanshu Mishra

How a KAUST lab discovery grew into a science-driven startup for sustainable farming in arid lands.

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Ready-to-Eat & Retail

Zed

Yousef Abuzaid

Restaurant-quality meals at grab-and-go speed, from a central factory and self-service machines.

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Fresh Produce & B2B Supply

Dan Foods

Ahmed Alghamdi

Prepared fresh produce for restaurants and retailers — saving hours of daily prep and cutting waste.

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Redwan Kayal

Founded on a simple yet powerful idea — bringing the natural goodness of dates into modern healthy snacks — Contemporary Foods is reshaping the local food landscape with clean, honest products. What started as a personal realization abroad has become one of the most promising healthy food ventures in Saudi Arabia.

Try Order

Amid the rapid digital transformation sweeping through the food and beverage sector, “Order” has emerged as a homegrown solution that successfully bridged a critical gap in the direct ordering experience for restaurants and cafés. What began as a crisis-driven response during the pandemic evolved into a comprehensive digital platform serving over 4,000 points of sale. In this interview, we follow the founder’s journey—from an urgent need to a scalable product reshaping the relationship between brands and their customers.

Ahmed Salama

As the pace of digital transformation accelerates in the Middle East, subscription-based business models have emerged as a key driver of changing consumer behavior and fueling market growth. At the center of this dynamic shift stands Techrar, a Saudi startup founded in 2022, quickly establishing itself as a pivotal player in subscription management. With bold vision and a steadfast commitment to innovation, Techrar is redefining how businesses build long-term and sustainable relationships with their customers.

Prof. Himanshu Mishra

In a world increasingly challenged by desertification, poor soil quality, and water scarcity, Terraxy emerged as a bold, science-driven solution with global ambition. This is the story of how a breakthrough in a KAUST laboratory grew into a pioneering Saudi startup shaping the future of sustainable agriculture in arid regions.

Yousef Abuzaid

Amid the rising demand for healthy and fast options in the food sector, Zed emerged as a Saudi brand offering a new model that balances restaurant-quality meals with the speed of ready-to-eat food. From the start, the company built on strong infrastructure—from a 5,600 m² central factory to a network of branches and self-service machines in prime locations—creating a modern food platform that fits seamlessly into people’s daily lives.

Ahmed Alghamdi

Our journey began with a simple observation: restaurants and retailers spend hours every day on basic preparation of agricultural products, washing, peeling, cutting, and sorting. at a time when they should be focused on serving their customers. At the same time, fresh produce often arrived with inconsistent quality, with significant waste due to improper handling. From here. - Dan Foods was born: a modern Saudi factory that delivers fresh, prepared agricultural products ready for use, meeting our clients’ daily needs while maintaining the highest quality standards.

Founder Journeys

Blend

Contemporary Foods

Order

Techrar

Terraxy

Zed

Dan Foods