Chocolate trend sends Dubai nuts for Turkish pistachios

Alamy via Reuters

• Turkish pistachios up to $41/kg
• Record high harvest expected
• Social media spiking demand

It may have started with a UAE resident trying to assuage her hunger cravings during pregnancy, but the latest taste sensation to sweep the Middle East and beyond is causing contractions in the supply of Turkish pistachios as demand for Dubai chocolate swells.

Turkey is in line to post a record high pistachio harvest for the 2024-25 crop, with estimates of between 385,000 and 400,000 tonnes, well over double the previous season and ranking it second only to the US in total output. 

And thanks to demand for a sticky confectionery, it seems as if this record high yield will be swallowed up. 

Created by British-Egyptian entrepreneur Sarah Hamouda, "Dubai chocolate" takes the traditional dessert kunefe – containing pistachios, shredded pastry, sweet soft cheese and syrup – and encases it in a rich chocolate coating. What started as a home-made treat took off when it encountered social media, the calorie-laden combination going viral.

This food fad may be a contributing factor in a spike in Turkish pistachio exports. The shipments in the first half of 2024, of just under 12,000 tonnes, almost equalled the 2023 – pre-Dubai chocolate – total and generated $100 million in revenue.

It is not just the increased foreign demand for pistachios that is pushing up prices and narrowing supply; Turkey itself has been caught up in the new confectionery craze. 

Local media report long lines outside specialist pastry shops producing the delicacy, prices for which have climbed to around $90 a kilogram as social media word has spread. 

While the hunger for Dubai chocolate should not cause a shortage in pistachio supplies, thanks to a strong harvest, the fad is pushing up confectionery prices across the sector, Mehmet Yıldırım, the chairman of the Baklava and Sweets Producers Association, told AGBI.

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“We have a good supply of pistachio this year, indeed high yields saw prices fall early in the season, so much so farmers staged protests and an increase was announced,” he said. 

“However, with the Dubai chocolate frenzy, demand jumped and so did the price of pistachio. The wholesale cost of shelled pistachio rose from TL850 [$24] a kilo to around TL1400 [$41].”

These increases are having a flow on effect across the Turkish confectionery sector, Yıldırım said, as higher costs of pistachio make the production of baklava and other traditional pastries more expensive. Input costs are up by as much as 50 percent as the appetite for Dubai chocolate siphons off supply. 

With new year fast approaching – a peak season for Turkish confectioners – demand and price are set to rise further, potentially remaining high until the passion for Dubai chocolate burns out.