With the attendance of 92 farmers and experts in the Date Palm cultivation sector, and representing 13 Arab countries.

Khalifa International Award for Date Palm and Agricultural Innovation organized a virtual lecture, presenting “Dates, a rich source of food industry innovations”, by Eng. Emad Eissa, Postgraduate diploma in Food Production, consultant in date productions industry, on Wednesday the 23^rd of December, 2020. The lecture was attended by 92 participants, representing 13 countries, among which are members of the Date Palm Friends Society in the UAE, date palm farmers, and Agricultural experts.

This virtual lecture held via Zoom, comes under the directives of His Highness Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan, Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, President of the Award’s Board of Trustees, and within the Award’s framework and commitment to spread the scientific knowledge and awareness on the Date Palm Best Practices, and providing technical and scientific advice and support to farmers to help them improve the Dates quality. Dr. Abdelouahhab Zaid, the Award’s Secretary General, expressed his appreciation to the extended scientific and professional efforts made by the international expert, Eng. Emad Eissa in increasing the growth and development rates of the food industry. Pointing out that the Arabic dates are eligible to compete internationally, where some have already achieved advanced rankings in the global date palm market. Thanks to a set of factors, where one of the most important factors is the full application of good agricultural and manufacturing practices which will in return increase the value of Arabic dates.

For his side, Eng. Emad Eissa, presented during the lecture that most of the date manufacturing industries are limited to the manufacturing of molasses (Dibs) and dough, while dates as a raw material has an important industrial qualities, such as its sweet taste and flavorlessness, which makes it easy adding it to many products without affecting the targeted flavor of the product. This is in addition to that dates can be converted into several forms such liquid form (molasses), dough (paste) and dry powder, where dates consist of a high nutritional value compared to other fruits (sugars, fibers and minerals). The different forms of dates could also be part of a wide international food manufacturing industries, as it could be used as a substitute to refined sugar, or in producing new products to be widely available in markets, as the demand on refined sugar free products is in increasing due to the increasing nutritional awareness, and the imposed high taxes in many countries on products containing refined sugar.  

Moving forward, Eng. Emad then presented from a scientific prospective in details some of the possible opportunities in the date field, where a wide range of innovative date manufacturing industries could be created, which also has a high economical and nutritional feasibility, such as: caramelized date cream, Baser chips, concentrated Baser juice, date pickles, energy and protein bars, and dates molasses spreads and much more.

Eng. Emad Eissa, then concluded the lecture by highlighting the great role played by the Khalifa International Award for Date Palm and Agricultural Innovation in supporting and developing the date palm cultivation sector and the date production worldwide, through the organizing Jordan International Date Palm Festival, Sudan International Date Palm Festival, and Egypt International Date Palm Festival and the accompanying activities and events. Which actively contributed to the increase the reputation of the Arab dates and the volume of exports, in addition to the series of international conferences organized by the Award’s General Secretariat for over twenty years.