Food & Drink Supply restrictions send Turkey date prices soaring By William Sellars March 10, 2025, 2:25 AM Unsplash+/Curated Lifestyle Many Muslims turn to dates to break their fast during Ramadan but prices in Turkey have risen Date prices in Turkey up 30% High demand in Ramadan Usual supplies restricted Prices for dates in Turkey ahead of Ramadan pretty much always rise because that is when demand surges. The Turks are otherwise not big eaters of the dried fruit. But during Ramadan it is usually the first food muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere tend to eat to break the fast after a long day with no food or liquid, since its sugar content provides near-instant energy. This year in the run-up to the start of Ramadan on March 1 prices for dates in Turkey surged by as much as 30 percent. In some cases dates were also sold by the piece rather than the kilo, as suppliers scrambled to replace the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel as two of their biggest sources of imports. “The demand created by the gap left by Israel increases the potential for imports from Saudi Arabia, but also for more imports from Egypt and Jordan,” says Serkan Yıldırımlı, owner of Istanbul-based date importer and wholesaler Tamr Hurma. Dates come in different shapes, sizes and tastes. Turks seem to have an affinity for the ones from the Palestinian Gaza Strip and the West Bank’s Jordan Valley, where date palms have been grown for millennia in warm and sandy conditions. In 2023, the occupied Palestinian territories were Turkey’s largest source of imported dates by value, at $17.8 million, according to data from the World Bank’s World Integrated Trade Solution data platform. Israel was number six at $10.2 million. But the data suggests that Turks prefer Palestinian dates over pretty much any other as they were prepared to pay more than $5,000 per tonne for them, versus less than $3,000 for Israeli dates. After Hamas’s attack against neighbouring Israel towns and villages on October 7 2023, and during the ensuing war, date supplies from the Gaza Strip were cut. The next May after that year’s Ramadan season, Turkey cut off all imports from Israel in protest against its war in Gaza. But that has also affected supplies out of the Palestinian West Bank, since that area is effectively landlocked by Israel, and distinguishing between West Bank dates and Israeli dates can be a complicated certificate of origin process. Turkish inflation eases again, with interest rate cut likely Turkey meets US egg demand with increased exports Confidence builds in Turkish real economy The most competitively priced dates among Turkey’s six biggest suppliers in 2023 were from Iran, at less than $500 per tonne. That made for a total $13.8 million by value but more than 28,000 tonnes by volume, making Iran Turkey’s third-biggest supplier by value immediately after Saudi Arabia. After Egypt, Saudi Arabia is the world’s biggest supplier of dates, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. Given the difficulties in securing dates from Palestine and the restrictions on Israeli imports, this year other date suppliers – from Saudi Arabia to Egypt and Jordan to Tunisia – are stepping into Turkey’s Ramadan date breach but at a bigger cost to the consumer. “It is hard to give a figure measuring the increase in our business during Ramadan but the gap (in supply) is huge,” says Yıldırımlı.
