Unlock the digestive of free editor
Roula Khalaf, the FT editor, chooses her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The meteoric growth of chocolate in Dubai has caused a global crisis of pistachio supply, exacerbating a worldwide lack of green nut and sending its rising prices.
Baret, a wedding of Pistachio cream, chopped paste and milk chocolate, were a modest hit after their start in 2021 by the Boutique Emirati Chocolatier Fix – until a video ticking turned them into a global sensation.
The clip, posted in December 2023, has accumulated more than 120 million views and promoted a craze all over the world for Pistachio chocolate, making a multitude of knock-off.
Due to Mani, pistachio kernel prices have risen from $ 7.65 pound a year ago to about $ 10.30 pound now, said Giles Haqe Cg Hacking. “Pistachio’s world is essentially tapped at the moment,” he said.
Chocolate does not come free. Dubai’s retail bid at £ 10 for 145 grams in the UK, more than twice its other rods. But customers are so prone that some stores are reported to be limiting how many bars each customer can buy, while British and British WM Morrison supermarket have launched Easter eggs with Pistachio cream.
Pistachios’ shares were already shrinking after a disappointing harvest last year in the US, the main nut exporter. American culture was also of higher quality than usual, leaving less free, shell -free kernels, which are usually sold as ingredients for chocolate and other food, Hacking said.
“There wasn’t much supply, so when Dubai Chocolate comes together, and (chocolates) are buying all the kernels they get their hands. That leaves the rest of the short world,” Hacking said.
Iran, the world’s second largest manufacturer, exported 40 percent more pistachios in the United Arab Emirates in six months to March 2025 than he did during the full 12 months before this, according to the Iranian Customs Office.
The absence marks a sharp upheaval from 2023 when the Global Supply of Pistachio exceeded the demand and triggered a price drop, said Behrooz Agah, a board member in the Iranian Pistachio association.
Because of that glut, “a variety of by -products became available such as pistachio butter, oil and pastes, which can be used in a wide range of pistachio -based foods,” he said. “It was ready at the same time Dubai Chocolate was launched and gradually went viral all over the world.”
In California, some farmers have begun switching from almonds to pistachio in recent years due to the low prices of almonds, but those trees will not begin to produce up to next season’s crops in September.
Meanwhile, chocolates say they cannot produce enough from the cream -filled rods.
“It feels like it came out of nowhere, and suddenly you see it in every corner store,” said Charles Jandreau, General Manager for Group’s Prints, who owns the luxury chocolate brands in the United Kingdom.
“No one is ready for that,” he said, describing his battles to buy Kataifi, the destroyed Middle East paste used in the cream.
Chocolate lovers had already suffered from a cocoa supply crisis, which led prices in almost threefold in 2024 after extreme weather and diseases hit the crops. Manufacturers have sold smaller bars with new recipes that scratch cocoa.
Fix, who called its original viral bar “could not take the knafh” after a traditional Arabic desert, said as it was “extraordinary” to see how the company had inspired “a movement in chocolate”, they were concerned that others could use their brand to deceive clients. The company does not sell its bars outside the United Arab Emirates and only puts them on sale for two hours a day.
Her rivals are indecisive.
We are “simply overwhelmed with the demand for chocolate in Dubai,” said Johannes Läderach, the chief executive of Swiss Chocolatier Läderach. “We started them a few months ago, and it’s just not stopping. It’s just passing through the roof.”
