The price of Tunisian dates depends on what you buy, when you buy it and how it travels, so any single per-kilo figure you read online should be treated as a rough reference rather than a quote. Export statistics give a useful orientation, but they average Deglet Nour with industrial-grade fruit, organic with conventional, and whole fruit with paste. A food manufacturer sourcing standard-grade fruit for processing and a retailer ordering premium branch dates are shopping in two different markets, even though both start from the same palm grove in the south of Tunisia.

This guide breaks the price down into the parts that actually move it: format, grade, certification, harvest size, packaging and shipping terms. It uses the most recent official export data we could verify, shows how to read it without over-interpreting it, and ends with a checklist for comparing supplier quotes line by line. There is no price list on this page, because a reliable price needs a specification, a quantity and a destination. What you will find is the logic behind the numbers, so the quote you receive makes sense when it arrives.

What Tunisian Export Statistics Say About Average Prices

The most recent campaign-level figures we could verify come from ONAGRI, Tunisia’s national agricultural observatory, as reported by allAfrica in March 2025. They cover the first five months of the 2024/2025 campaign, October 2024 to the end of February 2025, which is the period when most of the crop is shipped.

Indicator	Oct 2024 to Feb 2025	Change versus previous campaign
Export revenue	581.8 million TND	down 1%
Export volume	90.3 thousand tonnes	down 2.9% (from 92.9 thousand tonnes)
Average price, February 2025 only	6.02 TND per kg	down 1.9% versus February 2024
Deglet Nour share of export volume	86.8%	not reported
Organic dates share of export volume	under 4%	not reported

Two things stand out. First, Deglet Nour is not one product among many in Tunisian trade; it is close to nine kilos out of every ten that leave the country, which is why Deglet Nour dates from Tunisia set the reference price for the whole sector. Second, the headline numbers barely moved from one campaign to the next. Dividing revenue by volume gives an implied average of about 6.4 TND per kilo for the five months (581.8 million divided by 90.3 million kilos), against roughly 6.3 the year before. That is a derived figure, calculated from rounded published totals, so read it as an order of magnitude and not as a market quote.

Why a national average is not your price

The average blends everything Tunisia ships: whole fruit and processed fruit, top grades and fruit destined for industrial use, conventional and organic, large pallets and small retail packs. Your price will sit above or below it depending on where your specification falls inside that range. A quote for premium retail-ready dates should be well above the average; a quote for standard-grade fruit in bulk cartons should sit close to it or below it.

Currency adds a second layer. The official figures are in Tunisian dinars, while export contracts with importers are often written in euros or US dollars. A move in the exchange rate can change the price you see on an invoice even when the dinar price at origin has not moved at all, so always confirm the currency of a quote before comparing it to anything.

How to use the average sensibly

Treat the average as a sanity check and nothing more. If a bulk quote for a standard specification is dramatically below the national figure after converting currencies, ask what has been left out: a lower grade, higher moisture, added ingredients, or freight and documents that are not included. If it is dramatically above, ask what you are paying for: certification, packaging, a premium grade, or delivery to your door. Either way, the useful question is never “what is the price of Tunisian dates” but “what exactly does this price include”.

Format: Why Whole, Pitted, Paste and Powder Cost Different Amounts

Every extra processing step adds cost, and some steps also remove weight, which raises the price per kilo of the finished product even before labour and energy are counted. Understanding the mechanics helps you judge whether a premium for a given format is reasonable.

Format	What you pay for beyond the fruit	Why the price per kilo moves
Standard whole dates	Sorting, grading, treatment, packing	Baseline; closest to the national average
Pitted dates	Pitting line, detection and inspection	The pit is removed, so you receive less weight per kilo of raw fruit processed
Branch dates	Selective harvest, careful handling, rigid packaging	Only well-formed clusters qualify, so the usable share of the crop is small
Date paste	Pitting, puréeing, filling in pails or drums	Priced on dry matter and texture specification, not on appearance
Date powder	Pitting, dehydration, milling, sieving, moisture-proof packing	Water is removed, so more raw fruit is needed per kilo of finished powder

The pit itself accounts for a noticeable share of the weight of a whole date, often in the region of a tenth, which is why a pitted date cannot be priced like a whole date even if the fruit is identical. For paste and powder, the logic is different. You are not buying appearance, you are buying a technical specification: moisture, sugar concentration, particle size or texture, and microbiological quality. Two products labelled “date powder” can be priced very differently because one is a milled whole fruit and the other contains a carrier, and the cheaper one may simply contain less date per kilo. The processing chain behind these formats is described in how Tunisian dates are processed, and the buyer-side view of the paste specification is in the date paste ingredient guide.

Processed products on the AgroPalm range

If you are comparing several formats for the same recipe, request quotes for each from the same supplier on the same day, with the same incoterm and the same quantity. The processed dates page and the full product range list the formats available, and a single conversation usually shows which one gives the lowest cost per finished unit once yield and labour on your own line are included.

Cost per usable kilo, not cost per purchased kilo

A cheaper whole date that you must pit yourself can cost more in total than a pre-pitted one once you add labour, pit-fragment inspection and the weight lost. Run the comparison on cost per usable kilo of pit-free fruit, and include the quality-control cost on your side if you are doing the pitting.

Grade: Standard Versus Premium

Grade is the single largest lever on price for whole fruit, because it reflects how much of a harvest qualifies. Premium and extra grades are the smaller share of the crop: they need uniform size, even colour, intact skin and moisture inside a narrow range. Standard grade accepts more natural variation in size and appearance while meeting the same food-safety requirements. The full logic of the classification is explained in Understanding Date Grading.

A practical way to decide how much grade you need is to ask who will see the whole fruit. If the date will be chopped, puréed, milled or baked into a product, the customer never sees its cosmetic quality, and paying for a premium grade buys nothing the consumer can detect. If the date is sold whole on a shelf or in a gift box, appearance is the product, and a lower grade will show up in returns and reviews.

Your use	Grade usually worth paying for	Reason
Paste, powder, fillings	Standard or processing grade	Fruit shape disappears in processing
Bars, bakery inclusions	Standard, pitted	Pieces are chopped or embedded
Retail packs of whole dates	Upper grade	Appearance drives repeat purchase
Gifting, hospitality, display	Premium, often on the branch	Presentation is part of the price

What makes a grade price rise or fall inside a season

Grade premiums are not fixed. In a year with a good crop, the share of fruit meeting upper-grade criteria is larger, and the gap between standard and premium narrows. In a difficult year it widens, because the upper grades become scarcer. This is one reason why a supplier who has visibility on the whole crop, and not just on a lot, can give you a more stable offer.

Organic and Certified Supply

Certification costs money to obtain and to maintain, and organic farming typically yields less per hectare than conventional. Both facts push the price of certified supply up, and the Tunisian export data confirms the direction, although not always the size, of the premium.

For the same period covered above, organic dates represented under 4% of export volume: about 3.7 thousand tonnes, worth roughly 35 million dinars, at an average of 9.36 TND per kilo. That is clearly above the 6.02 TND per kilo recorded for all dates in February 2025. The same report breaks organic exports down by type: 8.38 TND per kilo for organic dates in the standard category, 10.35 for organic date-based derivative products, and only 2.53 for organic dates of an industrial type. In other words, “organic” alone does not tell you the price. The end use inside the organic category moves it by a factor of four.

The report also shows that premiums are not guaranteed. Compared with the previous campaign, organic export volume fell 5.9% while organic export revenue fell 30.7%, which means the average price received for organic dates dropped sharply. When you negotiate organic supply, you are negotiating inside a market where the premium moves from one season to the next. The practical meaning of the label, and how to verify a certificate, is covered in Organic Tunisian Dates.

Food-safety and market certifications

Certifications such as IFS and BRCGS, or halal certification for specific markets, do not usually appear as a separate line on a quote. They are a cost of operating the facility, spread across all production, and what they buy you is access: many retailers and importers will not list a product without them. What to check on the documents is explained in IFS and BRCGS Certified, and market-specific requirements are in Halal Certification and Tunisian Dates. A quote that is noticeably cheaper than others and cannot supply current certificates should be compared with caution; the saving may be the certification.

Harvest Size, Weather and Timing

Dates are a seasonal crop, and the size of each harvest feeds directly into price. Weather is the main source of variation. A German importer interviewed by FreshPlaza in 2025 described the 2024 Tunisian harvest as very weak after exceptional rainfall during the growing season, with the quality of the goods suffering accordingly. A year later, a regional professional representative quoted by allAfrica in October 2025 expected a record harvest of about 404,000 tonnes.

These two statements, a weak crop followed by an estimated record one, show how much supply can swing between consecutive years, and why prices set at one moment may not hold at the next. The same October 2025 report adds an important point: the price of Tunisian dates is formed by market mechanisms, meaning supply, demand and quality, and the professional group cannot impose a price. A buyer should not expect a published “official price” to exist; it is a negotiated outcome each season.

When to buy

Fruit is most abundant, and the range of grades and formats widest, shortly after the October and November harvest, as described in the guide to the Tunisian date harvest season. Buyers with recurring volumes often agree quantities before harvest and call off deliveries across the year, which smooths price exposure compared with buying reactively in spring when some grades have thinned out.

Why a record crop does not automatically mean low prices

A large harvest increases supply, but exporters also face higher storage and handling volumes, and international demand does not rise in proportion. In the same report, exporters call for a long-term national marketing plan and for more diversified outlets, which tells you that a large crop is a commercial challenge as much as an opportunity. For a buyer, the practical consequence is leverage: in a long crop year, you are better placed to negotiate specification, packaging and payment terms, even if the headline price per kilo is not dramatically lower.

Packaging, Incoterms and Freight

A fair comparison between two quotes requires the same packaging and the same delivery terms. Bulk cartons of standard fruit cost less to produce than pre-weighed retail packs with printed film or boxes, and rigid packaging for branch dates costs more than either. Details on formats and what to specify are in Custom Packaging Options for Bulk Date Buyers.

Delivery terms matter at least as much. Incoterms define where the seller’s responsibility ends, and quotes written under different incoterms are not comparable until the missing costs are added.

Incoterm (2020)	Seller’s responsibility ends	What you still pay for
EXW	Goods made available at the seller’s premises	Loading, export clearance, all transport, insurance, import clearance
FOB	Goods loaded on board the vessel at the port of shipment	Sea freight, insurance, import clearance, inland delivery
CIF	Goods shipped, with freight and minimum insurance paid to the destination port	Import clearance, port charges at destination, inland delivery
DAP	Goods delivered to the named place, ready for unloading	Import clearance and duties

Freight is the part of the final cost that fluctuates most for reasons unrelated to dates. Ask your supplier whether the freight line in a quote is fixed for a given validity period or indicative, and whether it assumes a full container. Partial loads, mixed pallets and humidity-controlled containers can change the figure. If you are importing for the first time, the sequence of steps from inquiry to documents is laid out in How to Place Your First Bulk Order, and the wider sourcing checklist is in the Tunisian Dates Export Guide for Importers.

How to Compare Supplier Quotes Line by Line

Two quotes that look 10% apart often differ by much more once everything they contain, and everything they omit, is put on the same footing. The easiest way is to put each quote in a table with the same rows. If a supplier cannot fill a row, that is information in itself.

Row to fill	What to look for
Variety and format	Deglet Nour whole, pitted, paste, powder or branch, stated explicitly
Grade and specification	Grade name, size range, moisture target, defect tolerance, in writing
Ingredients	Dates only, or additives such as glucose syrup, humectants or preservatives
Packaging	Net weight per carton, material, bulk or retail-ready, labelling included or not
Quantity and tolerance	Tonnes per container, allowed variation, partial loads
Incoterm and port	EXW, FOB, CIF or DAP, with the named place
Currency and payment	Currency, deposit, balance terms, quote validity period
Certificates and documents	Phytosanitary, origin, IFS or BRCGS, organic, halal, analysis certificates, and which are included
Lead time	From order confirmation to loading, with the assumptions behind it
Claims policy	What happens if goods arrive out of specification

Check what is in the box as well as the price

The ingredient row deserves special attention. Dates are often sold in the trade as a pure product, but the market also contains fruit that is coated or treated: for instance, fruit that is sorted out for defects can be coated with a glucose syrup, as one French food-press article from 2009 noted. A cheaper price per kilo can reflect added ingredients, which changes both your label and your product. Require an ingredient declaration on the specification sheet and compare it across suppliers.

Ask for samples that match the quote

A sample is only informative if it comes from the same lot, grade and packaging as the offer. When requesting one, say so explicitly, and compare it against the written specification. If you buy from a certified facility, the certificate of analysis for the lot is a second reference point, and a mismatch between sample and paperwork is a reason to pause before ordering.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the price per kilo of Tunisian Deglet Nour dates?

There is no single price. Official export statistics show an average of about 6 Tunisian dinars per kilo across all Tunisian dates in the 2024/2025 campaign, but your price depends on format, grade, packaging, certification and delivery terms. A reliable figure requires a written specification and a quantity, which you can request through the contact page.

Are organic dates always more expensive?

On average they were in the 2024/2025 data, at roughly 9.4 dinars per kilo against about 6 for all dates. The premium varies by type, from far above the average for derived products to below it for organic dates of an industrial type, and it fell during the same campaign.

Why does a pitted date cost more than a whole date?

Pitting requires equipment, inspection and labour, and the pit’s weight is removed, so you receive less fruit per kilo of raw material processed. You are paying for convenience and for a controlled process that reduces the risk of pit fragments in your product.

When is the best time to buy?

Supply and choice are widest right after the October and November harvest. For recurring volumes, agreeing quantities before harvest and scheduling deliveries across the year usually gives more stability than buying on the spot.

Can I get a price for a small first order?

Minimum quantities depend on the format and packaging. Describe your use, target volume and destination to the sales team, and ask what is feasible for a trial shipment before committing to a full container.

Conclusion

The price of Tunisian dates is the sum of identifiable parts: the format and the processing it requires, the grade and the share of the crop that qualifies, certification, the size of the harvest, and the packaging and shipping terms around the fruit. National averages help you check the order of magnitude, but they cannot replace a quote built on your specification. Compare offers row by row, insist on written specifications and ingredient lists, and match the grade to what your customer actually sees. When you are ready, start from the standard grade page or the full product range, and send a precise request.