Dates have been beloved in cultures around the world for centuries—but can they truly dominate the American supermarket candy aisle?

Since 2015, Rancho Meladuco Date Farm owner Joan Smith has been supplying American chefs and home cooks with what has become one of the buzziest ingredients on grocery shelves today: Medjool dates. Fudgy and plump with notes of toasted caramel, these dates are featured in classic recipes like sticky toffee pudding and Lebanese ma’amoul cookies as well as smoothies and trendy energy balls. “I see new [date-sweetened] brands every year at the food [trade] shows,” Smith says. “It’s a lot of fun to see this formerly overlooked amazing little superfood go viral and show in so many ways.”

Smith explains that the date’s journey stateside started roughly 100 years ago, when Medjool date palms (a variety native to Morocco at the time) were plagued by disease. “To preserve this special date variety from extinction, farmers sought to find a climate suitable for Medjools, which cannot be grown in some regions of the Middle East,” she says. They determined that California’s Coachella Valley—where Rancho Meladuco is situated—was an ideal match, with its abundant sunshine, high temperatures, and fertile soil supplemented with plentiful aquifers. About 14 Medjool palm trees, free of this disease, were brought from Morocco to the United States, laying the foundation for a thriving domestic date industry featuring many prized varieties like Abada and Khadrawy.

Andrea Hernández, founder of Snaxshot, a newsletter and online community focused on grocery trends, likens the date’s journey into the American mainstream to that of matcha, which she says has “permeated everything from powders to drinks and desserts.” She traces some of the first versions of date-based packaged goods in the United States to the early 2010s, when American brands like Date Lady and Just Date started championing the date’s versatility with syrups and pastes, many of which are still available at grocery stores nationwide. More than a decade later, interest is only increasing.

“Dates provide a natural alternative to sweeteners that appeal to consumers looking for simplified ingredients that come from whole food sources,” says Whitney Herrera, a merchant in Whole Foods’ “functional snacks” category. In September, 145 Whole Foods Market locations began to sell date-based chocolate bars from Spring & Mulberry, a brand that launched online in 2022 and has become a popular pick at specialty and health-focused grocers like Bubble Goods and New York City’s Instagram-darling boutique Big Night. The expansion is a win not only for the brand but for the date-sweetened confection category as a whole.

Spring & Mulberry founder Kathryn Shah first turned to dates for health reasons—in her case, due to a cancer diagnosis in her mid-30s. “I found research that demonstrated how sugar consumption can be linked with every major disease—from cancer to heart disease to Alzheimer’s,” she says. But for Shah, dates’ high level of fiber and naturally occurring sugars aren’t the only benefits. “Jammy dates; fruity, floral pollens; rich cacaos; and tangy spices bring a depth of flavor and spectrum of sweetness that’s so much more interesting than the one note of sugar,” she says.

The chocolate-covered date brand Date Better, which launched in 2022, also celebrates the fruit for what it is instead of what it can replace or be hidden inside. Each box contains two Coachella Valley–grown Medjool dates that are enrobed in dark chocolate and stuffed with nut butters, crunchy cacao nibs, espresso beans, and more.

“There’s just something so magical about the rich, layered experience of whole dates, and I didn’t want to lose that by breaking them down or using them just as a sweetener,” says founder Michelle Valdez-Wilton. This August, the brand was one of ten accepted from a pool of over 1,600 brands that applied to join the Whole Foods Local and Emerging Accelerator Program (LEAP), which offers mentorship, educational programming, and a shot at shelf space for “innovative food brands not yet sold in Whole Foods Market stores.” The brand’s date packs are already an increasingly common sight at the checkout counters in airports and “fancier” bodegas.

America’s love affair with sugar is ironclad. According to a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study from 2023, the average American adult consumes 17 teaspoons of sugar per day, roughly 200% to 300% of the recommended amount. Reevaluating that relationship requires a nuanced understanding of where sugar itself comes from.

Katie Lefkowitz, who launched Harken Sweets after a personal health scare in 2018, does just that by using date caramel (inspired by a family recipe) as the core ingredient in her nostalgic candy bars. “When I started coming up with the concept, I was looking for something that would replicate the taste of a Snickers or a Milky Way,” she says.

With candy bars (simply called “the Crunchy One,” “the Nutty One,” and “the Gooey One”) in over 5,000 stores nationwide, including Albertsons, Acme Markets, United Supermarkets, and Walmart checkout aisles, Lefkowitz is betting that the future of the date-sweetened confection is affordable and accessible, not Erewhon-ized; at Walmart, “The Gooey One” costs just $2.74. Sure, it’s double the price of a Snickers bar, but it’s still in the same universe in terms of physical shelf space and price point, and it’s far less than many other artisanal chocolate brands.

“A few years ago, it felt like hitting zeros on the nutritional fact panel was the thing—zero calories, zero sugar, zero net carbs,” says Anna Peck, founder of Chia Smash, a line of superfood jams primarily sweetened with dates. “In the last year or so, I’ve started to see a swing back toward a focus on real, nutrient-dense foods, and if that means a few grams of natural sugars or a few calories, that’s okay.”

Peck considered using agave nectar, maple syrup, coconut sugar, and honey to sweeten her jams, but she ultimately felt that none of those options rivaled the date’s one-two punch of nutritional value and flavor.

“What makes a date different from other sweetening options is everything else that comes along with it—you’re not just spooning straight-up sugar into your mouth,” she says. “Dates are a great source of fiber, which most Americans are not getting nearly enough of, and they’re also rich in antioxidants and important vitamins and minerals, including potassium, calcium, and magnesium.”

Flavor and health benefits notwithstanding, the date’s greatest gift arguably lies in its ability to go both high and low.

At the Date Room, an Abu Dhabi showroom that opened in 2018 to celebrate the “amber flesh” of chocolate-covered, nut-stuffed fruits “crafted with the precision of a Swiss timepiece,” a box of four dates can cost anywhere from $30 to $45. Meanwhile, Joolies, another date farm from the Coachella Valley, sells cheerfully packaged bags of slightly imperfect dates branded as “Ugglies” for $20 per 1.5 pound bag.

The prune could never.