How Two brothers and their childhood friend Turned a traditional Palestinian Recipe Into a modern Retail Brand

Every great food brand starts with a question. For Layth Massoud, the question was simple: where is the shatta?

It was early 2023, and Layth was hosting supper clubs with his brother, intimate dinners serving dishes that combined their Palestinian heritage with their experience in diaspora; in London and Amsterdam. For one of the dinners Layth had the idea to put Shatta on the menu – the fermented chilli sauce traditional to Palestinian cuisine.. When researching recipes, Layth was surprised to found how Shatta was missing from both shelves and online stores alike. A gap so big, he felt that there could be an opportunity.

So Layth had the idea to fill it.

A Founder With Something to Prove

Before Fil, Layth had already been through it with entrepreneurship. He started his first business at 23. It failed. He moved into larger and more established startups where he honed his craft. He learned from each one, and carried those lessons forward. Every experience taught him something new, about the market, about scaling, and about the kind of founder he wanted to be if he were to go back and start again.

Years working inside fast-moving startups, getting close to the mechanics of how businesses grow under pressure, meant that  by the time the supper clubs started, Layth was a seasoned operator with a clear vision and the experience to back it up.

The Business Behind the Brand

Fil (under Fil Foods)launched in 2024 with a clear thesis: modern Palestinian and Middle Eastern food is underrepresented, and the fermented condiment category has space that nobody else is filling. Layth and his two cofounders, Karim Amr and Ziyaad Massoud, started with four products: Habanero, Bird’s Eye, Jalapeño, and their newly created Shatta Jam While fermentation is a tried and tested process, using the fermentation brine was novel.

The fermentation brine, the liquid left over after making each shatta, often wasted, instead gets turned into something else entirely. The Shatta Jam, came from the Habanero brine. The Bird’s eye brine was repurposed to create a hot sauce. It is a circular model built into the product from day one. Fil made this a core part of the brand rather than a marketing afterthought.

The brand also sources Fairtrade Palestinian olive oil through Al Ard’, keeping the supply chain tied to the cultural story the products are meant to tell.

From Supper Clubs to Selfridges

By the time Fil was ready to scale, the team had built real momentum. The webshop went live, and Fil started appearing at markets while selling through B2C platforms like Delli. In September 2024, the first food service customer signed on. By the end of year one, Fil Foods had generated roughly £30,000 in revenue and was on track to double that to £60,000 in year two. The business had customers, a working supply chain, and a story that could hold up in a boardroom as well as on a shelf. It was ready to grow.

And grow it did. Fil Foods is stocked across roughly 40 retail partners today, including Selfridges and Whole Foods UK (launching in March). Discussions with Ocado, one of the UK’s largest online grocery platforms with over a million active customers, are underway. Layth’s goal is 150 retail partners by the end of the year.

Production is also moving to the Netherlands, opening up better access to European distribution and keeping costs lean as the business scales.

Forward·Inc and the Investor Readiness Program

Layth had been in discussions with Forward·Inc since late 2024. When he went full-time in February 2025, he joined the Investor Readiness program. The timing made sense. The business was solid, the team was capable, and the product was working. What Layth wanted was an extra push to move faster on the investor side.

The program gave him space to refine his pitch, tighten his financial model, and connect with people who could open doors. Layth won the €10,000 prize at the Forward·Inc Festival pitch competition, which brought visibility and validation. The program also facilitated introductions to investors, including conversations with WingInvest and more.

For Layth, it was less about transformation and more about acceleration. He had what he needed. Forward·Inc helped him get there quicker.

What’s Next

Fil is scaling, and the circular model stays at the heart of it. As the product line grows, every new addition is built around the same principle: use everything, give every part a purpose, and let the process speak for itself. Layth and the team are developing new products, and the brand is pursuing retail partnerships across Europe as production consolidates in the Netherlands.

Palestinian and Middle Eastern cuisine is gaining real visibility in mainstream food retail, and Fil is right at that intersection. A brand that earned its place on taste, on innovation, and on a product the world actually needed.

If you have been curious about shatta, or about what Palestinian food can look like on a modern shelf, give Fil a try. And if you have ideas, connections, or just want to say hi, the Fil team would love to hear from you.

Fil is a Forward·Inc alumni brand. Learn more at getyourfil.today or connect with Layth onLinkedin.

Interested in what the Investor Readiness program can do for your business?Take the next step with Forward·Inc.