Iran: Promising date season ahead

According to reports from Khoozestan (date province), the current crop of Iranian sayer dates seems to be in good condition, due to the good rain showers in winter and beginning of spring. Meanwhile in some areas smaller fruit size is expected in comparison to previous years. In the coming months this will be compensated when the tree drops the immature fruits which leads to larger fruits.

Quality of the new crop
The current crop of Iranian Sayer dates seems to be in normal condition but the important factors which help dates to grow to complete maturity and absorb the humidity to get fleshy and meaty are sunshine and warmth and relatively high humidity in the two months of July and August. Providing these conditions are reached a good crop is expected.

Approximately 50,000 tons are expected which will be directly delivered to processing dates plants in the state.

Current Crop (Carry forward)
Considering the current remaining stocks of the Sayer Dates, it is predicted that the market will run out of the dates at the end of September due to the high demand of the food by Iranian food processing factories, mostly fruit roll manufacturers. The new crop will be harvested in September.

Pricing
The price level of the new crop of dates is based on the minimum guaranteed buying prices announced in September by the governmental authorities. The prices are predicted to have at least 20-30% increase compared to the last year but due to the decrease the Rial exchange rate against foreign currency there will be no big difference between this year’s price in compared with last year’s prices.