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If you type “dates” into TikTok’s search bar, you’ll find plenty of ideas for a night of romance. You might also see a variety of recipes using the sweet, wrinkly, brown dried fruit. That’s because dates, the edible ones, are having a moment.
U.S. searches for “Medjool dates,” a particularly plump variety, hit a 20-year high in March of this year, according to Google Trends. And the searches aren’t just the result of a passing curiosity: Consumers are actually spending. U.S. retail sales of dates jumped about 30 percent in the 52-week period ending on July 13 compared with the year before, according to data from Circana, a market research firm. In 2024, sales increased nearly 19 percent over the prior year, Circana found. And over the past few years, dates have popped up as the hero in wellness-focused snacks.
“The Medjool is the Cadillac of dates,” said George Jeffrey, owner of Pacific Date Corporation, a grower, packer, and shipper of dates, as well as a snack manufacturer, based in Thermal, California. “It’s a pretty nice, large piece of fruit with a nice caramel flavor. And it’s having its day in the sun.” Last year, Pacific handled 17 million pounds of dates, said Jeffrey, seven million of them Medjools. Jeffrey expects growth next year. And recently, Pacific has decided to make date snacks of its own.
“We did a lot of co-manufacturing for other big date brands that were out there,” Jeffrey said, referring to contract manufacturing. “And we said, ‘Why are we doing that for everybody else? We should have our own brand.’” Sun Lovin’ Foods, which makes date-based energy bites in flavors like chocolate cherry and banana nut, launched in 2023. “It’s working very well,” Jeffrey said, noting that about 2,000 retailers are now carrying Sun Lovin’ snacks.
Jeffery is not the only farmer making the most of the fruit’s recent spike in popularity. Others, from small consumer-facing brands to players that operate behind the scenes, are marketing their own products and coming up with ways to keep the momentum going.
Their speed is “astounding to me,” says Jonna Parker, vice president of fresh foods at Circana, especially because farmers typically don’t do much marketing of their own products.
The demand means that some farmers are expanding, a welcome reversal from the national trend. “We’re going to expand on our facility here because we’ve outgrown it,” said Jeffrey. For Pacific, that means more equipment used to freeze and grade Medjools.
Meanwhile, Double Date Packing, a Medjool date grower in Coachella, California, has “been buying up ranches wherever we can,” says Hope Barbee, vice president of sales at the company. “We’ve been selling out of our fruit for the past two years straight.”
How dates got so popular
Dates are an ancient fruit with particular significance for Middle Eastern cultures. But that’s not why they’re going viral on TikTok. Foods that gain traction on social media often have a specific nutritional edge: Cottage cheese, for example, is packed with protein. Grapes are a low-calorie way to get your (natural) sugar fix. Dates are full of fiber, which is “one of the biggest trends right now,” Parker said. On social media, attempts to increase fiber intake have been dubbed “fibermaxxing,” and fibermaxxing recipes are readily available on TikTok.
The fruit has also become more visible as an ingredient in trendy packaged snacks. RX Bars, a protein bar company started in 2013, lists just a few ingredients prominently on its label, and dates are almost always among them. Over the past few years, companies like Date Better, Gato Dates, and Realsy have emerged with a focus on date-based snacks. Others, like Spring & Mulberry, are using dates to sweeten chocolate. Online, creators showcase date-heavy recipes for home-made versions of energy bars, caramels, candy bars, and more.
Rebecca Seitz, co-owner of the food and gifts retailer Sphinx Date Co. in Scottsdale, Arizona, suspects that social media has helped drive growth at her store, which specializes in dates. “They’re really simple recipes … just taking some dates and some nuts and making little energy bars,” she says. That’s “what makes it ideal for social media.” Over the past decade, Sphinx’s total sales have grown about 6.5 percent per year on average, Seitz says.
Sphinx Date Co. sells Medjool dates on their own and in gift trays or boxes. It also stocks less traditional products, like salsa and hot sauce made with dates as a sweetener. The goal is to “give an idea of the way you can use [dates] in savory applications,” said Seitz. “Lots of people come back for it,” she added. Items like that can be a boon for farmers, as well.
Date paste and syrup
“People are seeing new opportunities to use dates,” said Kristy Kneiding, manager of the state-run California Date Commission. That means “growers and packers are being able to convert [dates into] … date paste, date syrup, date-based snacks – and that actually provides a good outlet for the dates that don’t look so pretty and don’t qualify under our whole fruit standard.”
An unexpected increase in demand can be stressful. This year, Pacific Date has gotten forecasts from ingredient customers showing a 35 percent spike in orders month-over-month, according to Jeffrey. “I didn’t plan for this increase,” he said. If Pacific Date can’t source dates locally, it may have to import dates and contend with any relevant tariffs. Still, he said, “we’re all excited as date farmers, and happy that things are trending up.”
Generally, higher interest in dates and date products offers some “economic stability” in a notoriously unreliable business, Kneiding noted. “All farmers across the board are at mother nature’s mercy.” Stormy weather, for example, can destroy crops, eating into farmers’ sales. Strong demand, in these cases, may help.
For the commission, which collects fees based on sales, higher revenue means more funding for key initiatives, like government relations, research, and marketing. Last year, it partnered with the American Diabetes Association to spread awareness around how dates can fit into diabetic-friendly diets. “By being able to expand our marketing and branding, we’re able to also educate our consumers,” Kneiding said. This year it’s focusing on influencer marketing, among other initiatives.
State-operated groups can help raise awareness for agricultural products overall. But packaged goods companies – or growers themselves – have to set their own items apart.
Pretty packaging, date turtles, and one family’s story
About 10 years ago, when Joan Smith decided to start Rancho Meladuco Date Farm, she was already thinking about how to make people notice her dates. At the time, she observed that most date “packaging was unremarkable,” Smith recalled. She wanted Rancho Meladuco to stand out. To that end, her products are sold in tubs and boxes that feature bold designs, recipe recommendations, and, sometimes, maps of California, where the small farm is located.
With that ethos in place, Smith started pitching. “Right after launch, I used Instagram to start reaching out to different people in the food editorial space,” she recalled. Her efforts helped land Rancho Meladuco’s products on gift guides, including one published by The Wall Street Journal. Rancho Meladuco also joined the Specialty Food Association, a trade group that puts on regular shows where small businesses can meet retailers. And it’s taking part in the current online frenzy, posting recipes for frozen ice cream bars, Medjool date turtles, and more on its social media accounts.
Others brought fresh ideas to older businesses. Aziz Farms, which sells dates to wholesalers, began to market, ship, and brand its own products when owner Mark Tadros joined the family business about 18 years ago. Some of the changes Tadros made included “building a brand, designing packaging that popped and felt right, and then telling a story along with it,” he said. The Aziz Farms logo includes palm trees, camels, and pyramids, references to Tadros’s father’s home country of Egypt. Aziz Farms started packing Medjool dates around 11 years ago, Tadros said. At the time, it sold 42,000 pounds of Medjools per year – today, it’s up to 1.5 million pounds annually.
For Tadros and others like him, date farming is more than just a job. “I saw what my father had built,” he says, and “I felt like we had an opportunity to grow it in a way that would solidify his legacy in this industry.”
As he looks ahead, Tadros sees the importance of educating young consumers about small farms like his. “We do a lot of education activities, school field trips, programs like that,” he explains. “I’m hoping that we see a world where people are willing to pay more for produce that is closer to them,” helping to make local farming more sustainable.
“We’ve got a very optimistic outlook,” he adds. “It’s just staying the course.”
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Danielle Wiener-Bronner
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