UAE-based children's food specialist, Sprout, has raised a $200K investment from Bahrain's FA Holdings, empowering the young startup to press on with plans for retail expansion. Launched in 2019 by biochemist, Oz Erbas, and marketing technologist, Katerina Papatryfon. Sprout claims to be the first children's food company in the UAE to specialise entirely in plant-based products, using ingredients that are unprocessed, organic and locally-sourced.

Plant-based products have been increasingly popular in UAE's supermarkets, with chains like Spinneys citing growing demand among their consumer base and launching initiatives to shine a light on plant-based alternatives, likes plant-based burgers from halal food company, Al Islami, or products from plant-based food companies like VBites and Fazenda Futuro.

Interestingly, the startup also revealed that it is currently developing an app that utilises AI to help parents keep track of their children's nutritional intake and plan their meals.

Learn more about Sprout here.