We’ve been waiting all year and the time is finally here! Harvest season is wrapping up, and our farmers are in the final steps of picking our ripe, moisture-rich Medjool dates. Our palms, some of which date all the way back to the 1940’s, provide around 200 pounds of fresh dates on each tree. Since the palmeros only have a 3 week window to harvest the thousands of acres of trees (thanks Mother Nature), our team hit the ground running. There are quite a few steps that go into growing and harvesting our Medjool dates, so I’m sharing some of my favorite facts from our recent Harvest Tour.
We recently brought out some of our friends in the media to experience the harvest season firsthand. We stayed in the heart of Yuma, Arizona, and then took a bus down to the date groves in Bard Valley. Guests were brought up into the date palms to harvest by hand, learning tips for how to shake, gather, and pour the fresh fruit into collection bins that were transported to our sorting facilities. We then took our guests to Datepac, our sorting and packing facilities, to learn about each step from sorting to packaging. One of our favorite moments from the tour was putting our guests on the sorting line where all dates are hand-sorted by look and feel. To say this job is challenging is an understatement! Most could not keep up with the speed needed - another moment to truly appreciate all of the hard work and skill it takes to harvest fresh Medjool dates.
We ended the night under the stars at our dinner in the groves, just outside of one of our growers’ home. Local chef Alex Trujillo prepared a four-course date-inspired dinner, including Tamarindo Date Margaritas, Sweet Date Tamales, Vegan “Bacon” Wrapped Dates, and more. We had the opportunity to hear from many of the growers themselves, some of whom have been growing dates for 30+ years. It was a wonderful time of bringing people together from across the country to see all of the effort that goes into making this fruit accessible and enjoyable for people around the world.
From myself and everyone on our team, THANK YOU for supporting our growers. Every time you choose Natural Delights, you make what we do possible. It’s because of you that we’re able to provide thousands of jobs in the Yuma region. It’s because of your choice to grab our products off of your local grocery store’s shelf that we get to do what we love every day. This process is truly a labor of love, but our team is passionate about not only growing the best fruit possible, but also serving and supporting communities around the world. We are grateful to serve you. Until next year!
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Meet Natalia Toccoli, digital marketing manager for Natural Delights. As an avid baker, Natalia loves all things sweet, including Medjool dates of course! Her first days on the Natural Delights team were at our Harvest Tour in 2021 where she had the opportunity to get into a date palm and learn first-hand what it takes to harvest fresh Medjool dates.