In late May 2023, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, shared an image on his Instagram story: a packet of Dubai Pofak, sitting next to a bottle of hot sauce. There was no caption. There did not need to be.
For anyone who grew up in the UAE in the 1980s and 1990s, Pofak needs no introduction: a soft, cheese-flavoured corn snack that turned up in school bags, at picnics and on every corner shop shelf in the country. It disappeared in the late 1990s. Khaleej Times reported that the post "sent long-term residents on a nostalgic journey", with readers recalling the joy of sharing a packet, alongside other lost favourites like Areej juice and the Safari bar.
What most of them did not know was that Pofak had only just come back. Dubai Pofak is made by Hassan Bin Alshaikh Food Industries (Modernfood), and bringing it back took roughly two and a half years of development and testing to get the texture and the flavour right. The relaunch had barely begun when the photograph appeared.
"We re-launched the product after nearly two-and-a-half decades," our managing director Dr Ahmad bin Hassan Alshaikh told Khaleej Times. "It was an exciting moment for us when we saw Sheikh Hamdan share that image."
He was careful about what he read into it, and so are we: the Crown Prince posted a picture and said nothing at all. "I am so glad he posted it," Dr Ahmad said. "He must have liked the taste!" That is his reading, offered as one.
Dubai Pofak went out first through the Emirati Industries Cooperative before wider distribution, priced between 50 fils and one dirham a packet, roughly what it cost the first time round. It sits today alongside Papy Snacks, Dubai Bites and ChipStix, and it holds a V-Label Vegan licence, which the original never did.