
Do you ever imagine what kind of food we will eat in 10 years? I wonder if humans are forever destined to indefinitely binge on fast food. Or will tech save us?
Back in November, Dominika Malhas from my team moderated a panel “We are what we eat: The future of food” at Doers Summit Dubai. Her panelists were 2 individuals who represent the future of food from the inside out. More below.
In other news – the year has only started and we already welcomed 2 new companies to our family. The name of the first one may sound like ‘yumm,’ but that’s where the food connection ends ;) Yamm (KSA) is a logistics startup specializing in automated return and refund solutions.The other one is Yozo (UAE), an e-commerce AI startup, founded by a team of 5. If some of their faces look familiar to you, it’s because three of them previously built Fatura, a B2B e-commerce which we exited in 2022.
Welcome to the family!

Whether you’re a foodie or not, this discussion touches every one of us. I live in Kuwait, a country notorious for its high rates of obesity and diabetes – among the highest in the world. Beyond genetic predispositions, both diseases are strongly influenced by lifestyle, especially food choices. But food isn’t only a lifestyle risk; it’s also a source of healing. Because, after all, we are what we eat.
Here are 6 hard truths about the future of food:
#1: Food innovation starts inside the body, not in the lab
Most food-tech conversations start with production and scale. This one started with biology.
Mary Christine framed nutrition not as a lifestyle choice, but as biological performance:
“I don’t just eat food to make me healthy. I eat to manage stress. Food is either inflammation or non-inflammation.”
Her point was clear: eating well isn’t about following trends like keto or veganism. It’s about understanding how food interacts with your gut, immune system and nervous system, and how that shapes performance over time.
The future of food innovation doesn’t begin in factories. It begins with how different bodies respond differently to what we consume.
#2: Personalization makes eating better, not simpler
Personalized nutrition is often sold as clarity. In practice, it introduces complexity before it creates value – and that’s where many foodtech and wellness startups struggle.Mary was clear about what personalization is not: “Hyper-personalization doesn’t mean weighing your food and obsessing. It means asking: how is this helping my biology?”
Biomarkers, microbiome sequencing and AI-driven insights can meaningfully improve health outcomes – but only if users understand what the data represents and how to act on it: “Without our biomarkers and data tracking, we were never able to understand what works best for our biology.”
#3: Food security is no longer an agriculture problem; it’s an infrastructure problem
This is where the conversation moved from bodies to systems.Serene Farah framed food security in the GCC as a structural vulnerability, not a matter of consumer choice: “The GCC is a net importer of fresh fruits and vegetables, relying on long supply chains that affect freshness, nutrition and resilience.”
In this context, climate-controlled farming is not a niche sustainability play. It’s a critical layer of national infrastructure. Pure Harvest’s work shows that growing fresh produce locally, in extreme desert conditions, is both scalable and economically viable.#4: The biggest constraint to scaling agritech isn’t demand; it’s the wrong kind of capital
Pure Harvest has proven that the tech works, the market exists and that consumers care about quality. And yet, the biggest bottleneck remains capital structure.Serene made the distinction clearly: “What we need is patient, affordable, infrastructure-style capital. Venture-style capital isn’t ideal for high-capex food infrastructure.”
Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) behaves more like desalination, energy or data centers than software startups. Funding it incorrectly slows adoption, regardless of demand.
#5: “Organic” is a label, cleanliness is a system
One of the most revealing parts of the discussion was how easily the idea of organic unravels under scrutiny.Definitions vary by jurisdiction. Consumer understanding varies even more. Serene highlighted the inconsistency: “EU and US definitions of organic are different. Even consumers don’t agree on what organic actually means.”
What matters more than labels is how controlled and transparent the growing environment is: “In very controlled environments, you don’t need pesticides at all. From a cleanliness perspective, we can be cleaner than organic.”
#6: The future of food in MENA will be built locally, then exported globally
The GCC isn’t just investing in foodtech, it’s testing it in one of the harshest environments on earth.Mary believes the GCC will become the Silicon Valley of food tech.
Serene explained why that’s credible: “If you can grow fresh, high-quality produce economically in one of the most extreme climates in the world, you can export that technology globally.” Local players like Pure Harvest aren’t just addressing regional food security. They are building globally relevant agritech platforms born out of constraint, which historically is where the strongest innovations emerge.
I don’t own a magic ball (yet), but we can safely say that the future of food won’t be defined by trends, labels or promises of convenience.
It will be shaped by:
And food doesn’t just feed us. It teaches us who we are and what kind of future we’re willing to build.
Also, by 2035, food will certainly learn us. Whether that sounds scary or not.P.S. Arzan VC is a proud investor in Haseel, a Saudi fresh produce startup.
We wrapped up January at GCC Connect Kuwait ;)
See you around,
Hasan
6 hard truths about the future of food from a Doers Summit panel with Mary Christine (Be That Life) and Serene Farah (Pure Harvest):
>> Food innovation starts inside the body, not in the lab.
>> Personalization makes eating better, not simpler.
>> Food security is no longer an agriculture problem; it’s an infrastructure problem.
>> The biggest constraint to scaling agritech isn’t demand; it’s the wrong kind of capital.
>> “Organic” is a label, cleanliness is a system.
>> The future of food in MENA will be built locally, then exported globally.