Sustainability is the root of all Joolies dates

At Joolies, sustainability is more than a buzzword — it’s the company’s foundation.

While the produce industry is wrestling with an alphabet soup of audits and initiatives and scorecards, Joolies simply does what it’s done for nearly two decades, and that’s focus on planting and growing organic medjool date trees that provide consumers with U.S. Department of Agriculture-certified organic dates.

Located in the heart of Coachella Valley, CA, the farm is single-origin, vertically integrated and operates as a zero-waste facility. The farm includes roughly 1,000 acres of date palms and a 100,000 square-foot facility. Joolies is a joint partnership between the Kohl Family Farm and Venice Brands, along with the Desert Valley Date facility.

“At Joolies, we take pride in our organic roots and sustainable farming practices to support the environment and minimize both plastic use and waste,” says Amanda Sains, marketing director.

The company’s environmental and sustainability stewardship can be seen in its farming practices, as it uses solar-powered panels and incorporates thoughtful, measured use of water via drip irrigation. It also repurposes cull into cattle feed and palm fronds into fertilizer, utilizing the entire plant. 

THE PERFECT DATE

And that commitment is amplified in the care given to its products. To ensure the best possible quality, Joolies dates are hand-picked from the tree, carefully packed at peak ripeness and never dried. Because of Joolies dedication to organic living and sustainability, no harmful pesticides, herbicides or fungicides are used during the growing process — and Joolies is the only date grower that produces 100% certified organic and glyphosate-residue free dates.

Imperfect dates that do not meet Joolies’ cosmetic standards are upcycled into value-added date syrup, and “ugglies,” or lower-grade dates, are repurposed into a best-selling product for date lovers without visual judgement.

Over the last three years, Joolies has grown its portfolio of medjool date products, including whole dates, pit free dates and date syrups, into 4,000 retail locations across the U.S. and international markets.

TACKLING PLASTIC WASTE

For the past 70 years, Americans and others incorporated plastic into everything, and now 8 million metric tons of plastic end up in the oceans every single year. Joolies has set a goal to reduce the amount of plastic used in its packaging and help slow down the production of new plastic by using recycled materials.

The company uses paperboard material sourced from recycled paper products and its packaging is fully recyclable — utilizing less than 2g of plastic per package. In fact, among industry competitors, Joolies remains the only date brand with paper-based packaging, using 98% less plastic compared to other brands.

The company also encourages the upcycling or recycling of its medjool date boxes.

“We set out to grow a healthy snack as part of a healthier lifestyle,” says Sains. “Our sustainability efforts are in our DNA.”

• • •

Date Tree Fun Facts

• Date palms are among the most resilient, long-lived trees in agriculture — a typical life span is 80 years!

• Date palm trees are often called “The Lungs of the Desert,” and here’s why:
• Date palms absorb CO2 and produce sugar, oxygen and water.
• One single date palm absorbs up to 1 ton of CO2 throughout its lifetime.
• One acre of date palms absorbs roughly 26 cards of CO2 annually.