Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The meteoric rise of Dubai chocolate has triggered a global pistachio supply crunch, exacerbating a worldwide shortage of the green nut and sending its prices soaring.
The bars, a marriage of pistachio cream, shredded pastry and milk chocolate, were a modest hit after their 2021 launch by boutique Emirati chocolatier FIX — until a TikTok video turned them into a global sensation.
The clip, posted in December 2023, has amassed more than 120mn views and fuelled a worldwide craze for pistachio chocolate, spawning a host of knock-offs.
Due to the craze, Pistachio kernel prices have surged from $7.65 a pound a year ago to around $10.30 a pound now, said Giles Hacking of nut trader CG Hacking. “The pistachio world is basically tapped out at the moment,” he said.
The chocolate does not come cheap. Lindt’s Dubai offering retails at £10 for 145 grammes in the UK, more than double its other bars. But consumers are so keen that some shops are reportedly limiting how many bars each customer can buy, while Lindt and British supermarket Wm Morrison have launched pistachio cream Easter eggs.
Pistachio stocks were already dwindling after a disappointing harvest last year in the US, the nut’s leading exporter. The US crop was also higher quality than usual, leaving fewer of the cheap, shell-free kernels that are generally sold as ingredients for chocolate and other food, said Hacking.
“There wasn’t much in supply, so when Dubai chocolate comes along, and [chocolatiers] are buying up all the kernels they get their hands on . . . that leaves the rest of the world short,” Hacking said.
Iran, the world’s second-largest producer, exported 40 per cent more pistachios to the UAE in the six months to March 2025 than it did over the full 12 months before that, according to Iran’s customs office.
The shortage marks a sharp reversal from 2023 when global pistachio supply exceeded demand and caused a price drop, said Behrooz Agah, a board member at Iran’s pistachio association.
Due to that glut, “a variety of byproducts became available such as pistachio butter, oil and paste, which could be used in a wide range of pistachio-based foods,” he said. “That was around the same time Dubai Chocolate was launched and gradually went viral worldwide.”
In California, some farmers have begun switching from almonds to pistachios in recent years due largely to low almond prices, but those trees won’t start producing until next season’s harvest in September.
In the meantime, chocolatiers say they can’t produce enough of the cream-filled bars.
“It feels like it came out of nowhere, and suddenly you see it in every corner shop,” said Charles Jandreau, general manager for Prestat Group, which owns luxury UK chocolate brands.
“No one’s ready for this,” he said, describing his struggles to procure kataifi, the shredded Middle Eastern pastry used in the cream.
Chocolate lovers had already been suffering from a cocoa supply crunch, which led prices to almost triple in 2024 as extreme weather and disease hit harvests. Producers have been selling smaller bars with new recipes that scrimp on the cocoa.
FIX, which named its original viral bar “Can’t Get Knafeh of It” after a traditional Arab desert, said while it was “incredible” to see how the company had inspired “a movement in chocolate”, they were concerned that others may be exploiting their brand to mislead customers. The company does not sell its bars outside the UAE and only puts them on sale for two hours a day.
Its rivals are undeterred.
We are “just overwhelmed with the demand for Dubai chocolate,” said Johannes Läderach, chief executive of Swiss chocolatier Läderach. “We’ve launched them a few months ago, and it’s just not stopping, it’s just going through the roof.”