Joolies talked to Julia at Food52 about how a centuries-old fruit became buzzy and why it deserves a spot in your pantry.
If you’ve ever tried to find Medjool dates in a grocery store, you know it’s not always intuitive. You might check near the bananas, wander toward the baking aisle, or give up and ask someone. Until recently, date packaging rarely did itself any favors: generic plastic clamshells, muted colors, minimal context. The fruit may have been sweet, but it didn’t exactly look like it.
That started to change in 2019, when a line of brightly packaged, California-grown Medjool dates called Joolies started showing up in stores across the country. You’ve probably seen them even if you don’t know the name: turquoise stand-up pouches stamped with a bold yellow sun, sitting up in the produce section. Joolies wasn’t just trying to sell dates—they were trying to rebrand them entirely.
And it’s working. “We're now in 9,000 to 10,000 doors,” said Amanda Sains, VP of marketing and founding team member at Joolies. “As a whole, the date category—us and our competitors—is up 33% year over year.”
