UAE dates sales are up: retailers

Dubai: Food retailers in the UAE have said sales of dates are higher in Ramadan compared to previous months.

“Date sales have increased by up to 200 per cent [compared to June]. Ramadan is a peak time for date sales,” said V. Nandakumar, head of corporate communications at Lulu Hypermarkets.

Breaking the fast with dates is a Ramadan tradition. Supermarkets and hypermarkets sell dates sourced from different areas, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries.

“There is a hike in sales as the date harvesting season coincides with Ramadan this year,” Nandakumar said.

Farmers pick dates from over 42 million date palm trees across the country during the annual harvesting season, which lasts until November.

Nandakumar said there is enough supply of dates for the month.

Lulu’s date festival, organised in association with the Ministry of Environment and Water, brings together more than 100 varieties of dates. It is set to begin on July 21.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Ashfaq, group head of business development at Geant Hypermarkets said sales of dates during Ramadan is expected to increase compared to the same time last year.

“This year we expect better business than last year because people are staying back as Ramadan has started earlier than last year,” Ashfaq said.

Dates are the UAE’s biggest single agricultural crop. The UAE is also the world’s fourth largest producer of dates with produce reaching 755,000 metric tonnes.

Some of the date varieties introduced by the tissue culture programme in 2000 include Sukkari, Khenezi, and Maktoumi.

Dates from Saudi Arabia are popular alternatives with buyers, according to retailers.

Saudi Arabia has more than 23 million date palm trees, and produces more than one million tons of dates per year.