Less-than-traditional date products hit the shelves

Abu Dhabi: Date ice cream, truffles, cheesecake and muffins; these are all products that the store, Zadina, has on offer. The idea behind this variety is to introduce dates in an innovative manner to a wider audience.

Shaikh Hamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince's Court, attended the inauguration of Zadina — a concept developed by Al Foah company — which recently opened its door for business.

Following a three-year period of testing, sampling, and developing new products, the store has managed to create a range of less traditional date products.

Shaikh Hamed expressed his admiration for the products and said the country's leadership encouraged innovative ideas to keep the UAE's heritage, including dates, alive.

Global expansion

"We wanted to create new interesting tastes and flavours incorporating dates," said Ghada Fikry Abdul Shafei, the Chief Marketing Officer of Al Foah and the project leader behind Zadina. "We wanted to take dates globally, to non-date users."

"What sets our products apart from others is that all the dates used in our line are UAE dates. We also provide a range of gourmet items that are not found anywhere else," she added.

Research conducted in countries like Japan, India and the US show that dates are not globally accepted. Zadina aims to reinvent the fruit's image and change people's perceptions.

"Some of the terms we got in our studies to describe dates included ‘ugly' and ‘sticky'. We started to create products based on dates which were more appealing, as well as highlighting the health benefits of dates," Dr Karim Mohyeldin Saeed, Al Foah's CEO said. The company also aims to deliver high quality products locally.

"The idea was to provide a higher quality of UAE dates to the traditional date user, who are Muslims and the Arabs. Dates are usually sold in traditional packaging, featuring tents and camels. We wanted to create something more modern and attractive," Saeed added.