Joolies’ top marketer shares how the brand shook up a quiet category and now boasts 46% sales growth.

Grandmas eat dates.

It’s true, but millennials and Gen Z consumers should be eating them too, said Amanda Sains, Vice President of Marketing for date brand Joolies. The product category was in need of a shake up, and dates needed to be reframed as a snack that people wanted to eat every day, Sains said.

“We knew that we needed to change them from an old person’s fruit to not grandma’s fruit,” Sains said. “We wanted them to be the fruit that you want to have in your kids’ lunchbox.”

When Sains first joined Joolies in 2018, she went to several grocery stores for market research and looked for dates. It wasn’t easy. She had to check multiple aisles before finding them in a bulk bin or in a tub covered with dust and a generic label.

“I’m like, OK, so there’s not a lot of life in this category,” Sains said. “The No. 1 thing that we needed to do as a brand — but also as a category — is to bring more visibility to it.”

Joolies Picks Packaging that Pops

To start, that meant packaging. Joolies chose a standup pouch in a vibrant mint green, as that color doesn’t exist in nature and pops in the produce department, she said. Attractive packaging also speaks to younger shoppers, which is one of the brand’s goals of reaching more consumers. After retailers continued to request it, Joolies also sells its dates in a clear plastic tub with its bright label on it, similar to packaging for blueberries and strawberries.

“It kind of goes into being a commodity and purchase behavior,” Sains said about the plastic tubs.

The vibrant packaging also sums up it’s entire marketing strategy of making dates more visible, Sains said.

“From a disruption standpoint, the color and then the communication and the cuteness can really explain our premium value and help break through that existing purchase behavior of commodities to help us stand out as a brand and build that long-term customer loyalty and retailer trust,” Sains said.

Marketing a Commodity Product

While fruits and other commodities tend to have less branding than other consumer packaged goods products, that has been evolving over the years, with companies branding goods such as water, almonds, ground beef, butter and mandarins. In fact, one of Joolies’ co-founders is Greg Willsey, who previously worked at CPG brand POM Wonderful, owner of Wonderful Pistachios and Halo Clementines.

Joolies positions its dates as a premium product, as the brand grows its Medjool dates in California, 80% of its farms are organic, it has innovative growing methods and thoughtful water use, Sains said.

“Having a branded product attracts attention; It attracts new purchase behavior; And then it overall expands the category,” she said. “That’s really important as a commodity, because that helps everybody. High tides raise all ships in branded commodities.”

In fact, Sains has noticed competitors are now using brighter colors in packaging and changing their marketing tactics. She applauds this, as it helps drive more awareness to the category. The brand also loves to see when companies use dates as an ingredient in their products, such as a sugar replacement in chocolate bars or ice cream, as it also drives more awareness to dates.

“If everyone was just riding through the commodity wave, it would have no creativity, no innovation, and the consumer would not get the great benefits of all this fun innovation,” she said. “So being branded in commodities is important.”

Joolies Sales Outpace Category

And the growth is happening. Joolies has more than $10 million in annual sales and it grew 46% year over year in 2025. The brand has roughly 4.6% share of the date market. About 45 retailers sell Joolies across 10,000 locations, Sains said. Sales at natural grocery stores, such as Sprouts, Bristol Farms and Mom’s Organic Market, have increased 156% year over year. At more conventional retailers, such as Target and Albertsons, Joolies’ sales have increased 61% year over year, compared with dried fruit category sales only up 8% year over year.

“The last two or three years has really seen a boom in dates,” she said. “Probably not like the big boom that cauliflower and kale had, but we’re getting there.”

Joolies Taps Nano-influencers For Authenticity

Beyond vibrant packaging, Joolies drives awareness through using influencers and recipe videos with a “lifestyle message.” While dates have cohorts of fans — such as pregnant women and California natives — the fruit is not popular in the U.S. This gives the brand a large opportunity for storytelling, she said.

“This new wave of all the millennials and Gen Z are starting to be focused on health-conscious consumption,” Sains said. “It’s really at that point where wife is now mom, and she’s eating dates in the third trimester. People are discovering dates for not just their bodies, but for their household, and then it’s going to trickle down to their kids. That is the flywheel.”

Joolies uses marketing platform Hummingbirds to find nano-influencers, or people with less than 5,000 followers, and gifts them the product. The brand shares the benefits of dates, but does not give the influencers any requirements about what to say. While Joolies wants to educate consumers about the benefits of dates, it doesn’t want to be too clinical in its marketing. Instead, it leans into how consumers can incorporate dates as a snack in their life.

“We all know authenticity is important. If you have a huge creator with a million followers just randomly post about Joolies, that’s not authentic,” Sains said. “Having messaging coming from a smaller voice can have a larger impact.”

Some of the most impactful videos are ones in which the influencer doesn’t mention any health benefits. Instead, she talks about trying the product for the first time, and how she likes to eat dates between Zoom meetings, Sains said.

Measuring Impact

Joolies uses about 20 influencers per campaign, and it measures the effectiveness through impressions, new followers and sales velocity. Most of the time, influencers are happy with the free product and there isn’t any other form of compensation, she said.

As a small company — about five corporate employees— direct-to-consumer selling online isn’t feasible at the moment, Sains said. Without ecommerce data, Joolies does not have the ability to tie a specific marketing video to sales growth, she said.

Joolies’ call-to-action in online ads or in its email list of 50,000 subscribers typically directs shoppers to its store locator and a map so shoppers can see where they can buy the product at a store. Joolies also directs shoppers to buy at Instacart or at online retailer Thrive Market.