Matcha may well be one of the most popular beverages and dessert flavours in the market currently – but its mention is certainly not often correlated with savoury snacks, much less poultry items.
United Arab Emirates (UAE) protein brand Farm Fresh has decided to buck this trend with the introduction of its brand new, highly unusual matcha chicken nuggets, which not only taste like matcha, but very much look like it too.
“We fuse actual matcha powder into chicken breast meat to make the nuggets. This gives the final product a balanced taste of both chicken and matcha, and the interior of the nugget is a sharp green colour as well, which is a definite novelty factor,” Akshay Nandlal, GM Factory Operations at the Gulf Manufacturing Group (GMG) which owns the Farm Fresh brand, told us at Gulfood 2026 in Dubai.
“Snacking is becoming a stable part of many consumers’ diets so it is no longer just a phase and we know healthier products are increasingly popular in this regard, as is matcha which is only growing in popularity at every turn, so we thought there had to be a way to bring these two trends together.”
Matcha is well-known to be exceptionally popular among Gen Z consumers, and Nandlal is optimistic that the unusual combination of ingredients as well as the healthier factor will increase the appeal of this new launch.
“The use of actual matcha powder means we can confidently say that we are also improving the health benefits of the nuggets as we are bringing the nutrients of matcha into this product,” he said.
“Farm Fresh has long been focused on making high-quality chicken nuggets with breast meat, and the addition of matcha simply adds to the benefits.”
The matcha nuggets have currently only been launched in the Middle East as it is GMG’s home ground and due to more complicated protein regulations out of the region, but the firm hopes that success in the region will set the stage for it to export even further to more markets that can appreciate the combination of matcha and chicken.
Snacking and protein becoming the norm
Similar to many other markets worldwide, consumers in the Middle East are showing an increasing preference for snacks over large meals, and the nugget format is an important one for protein brands here due to its immense popularity.
“The demand for ready-to-heat (RTH) or ready-to-cook (RTC) products like nuggets is very high as many consumers are opting to shift to five or six small meals a day instead of the conventional three main meals,” he added.
“Many brands in this region are aware of this and innovating accordingly, so even though [GMG is one of the biggest companies in this region], there is a pressing need to innovate quickly in order to avoid stagnation or worse a lack of interest from consumers in our products.”
The brand is buoyed by the rise of protein demand in the region too, but its portfolio remains mainly focused on poultry and poultry-based snacks in response to this demand.
“Sustainability is important to us, and there is awareness that plant-based proteins are important for this, but the fact is that there is still limited supply and demand so what we are doing to improve in this area is emphasise our farm-to-fork strategy while working to enhance consumer protein education,” he said.
“We are also looking into hybrid proteins as a potential innovation area, but are still at the phase where we are studying the market and demand for this category – that said, we have seen some encouraging statistics in this area already for things like pea protein.”
