Aykiz Shah did not enter the soft drink business by following the usual script. She did not emerge from a multinational beverage boardroom or from a venture-backed startup pipeline. Instead, she built Salaam Cola around a different proposition: that a drink brand could grow internationally while staying closely tied to faith, transparency, and humanitarian responsibility.
Founded in Dublin in 2023, Salaam Cola has developed into a halal-certified beverage company operating in 14 countries. At a time when global consumer brands are under pressure to show not just scale but values, the company’s growth points to a wider shift in what some consumers now expect from the products they buy.
A brand built around more than taste
The beverage market is crowded, competitive, and heavily shaped by legacy companies with vast advertising budgets. Breaking into that environment usually requires either major capital or a formula built on novelty. Salaam Cola has taken a different route. Its pitch is not only about flavor, but about what the company represents.
Shah, 27, has positioned the brand around the idea that commercial growth and social responsibility do not need to sit in opposition. Salaam Cola donates 10 percent of profits to humanitarian causes, including projects tied to education, food aid, and medical support in conflict-affected communities. That model has become central to the company’s identity rather than a side note in its marketing.
This has helped Salaam Cola stand apart in a category where branding often depends on lifestyle imagery and mass visibility. In Salaam Cola’s case, the message is more direct: consumers are being asked to see their purchase as connected to something beyond consumption.
Expansion with a distinct identity
Within two years, Salaam Cola has expanded into markets including the UK, the United States, South Africa, Singapore, and Qatar. The company is also pushing further into the Middle East, where demand for halal-certified and ethically positioned products continues to grow.
That expansion is significant not only because of its pace, but because Shah has chosen to grow without softening the company’s core identity. Her public role as a niqab-wearing founder also carries weight in a business culture that still often rewards familiarity over difference. In that sense, Salaam Cola is not only selling a beverage. It is also challenging assumptions about who gets to lead high-growth companies and how leadership is expected to look.
The result is a brand that has drawn attention not by imitating dominant players, but by rejecting many of their conventions.
Growth plans tied to long-term impact
Salaam Cola’s next phase includes plans for regional production hubs by 2026, along with the creation of more than 2,000 jobs across key markets. The company also intends to expand into new product categories, including functional beverages aimed at changing consumer preferences.
Those ambitions suggest Salaam Cola is thinking beyond symbolic disruption. The goal appears to be long-term infrastructure, broader distribution, and product diversification. That matters because many mission-led brands struggle when the demands of growth begin to test their founding principles.
For now, Salaam Cola presents a notable case: a young company trying to prove that ethical commitments can remain central even as a brand scales internationally. In a market shaped for decades by corporate muscle and advertising power, its rise suggests there may be room for a different kind of global beverage story.
