Natural Delights vs Desert Sun Dates: An Honest Comparison (2026)

I own Desert Sun Dates, so read this knowing I sell one of the two things being compared. Everything below about Natural Delights was read from naturaldelights.com on 27 August 2026.

This is not a price fight and I am not going to pretend it is one. Natural Delights is the largest Medjool date brand in the United States and at a grocery store they will usually beat me on price per pound. They should. That is what scale does. The comparison worth making is a different one.

We grow these. Zahidi Dates | California-Grown & Farm-Direct | Desert Sun Dates from our family farm in Sky Valley, California — from $19/lb, shipping included. See them →

What Natural Delights actually is

This is the part most people do not know, and it is not a criticism — it is just how the business works.

Natural Delights is a marketing brand for a cooperative of Medjool date growers in the Bard Valley, where Arizona, California and Mexico meet along the Colorado River. The member farms opened a shared packing house, Datepac, in 2002, and launched the Natural Delights brand in 2013 to sell under one name. They describe themselves as the nation’s number one Medjool date brand, and as far as I can tell that is accurate.

So when you buy a tub of Natural Delights, you are buying fruit from the co-op — pooled, packed centrally, and distributed. You are not buying from a particular farm, because that is not what the brand is. A co-op exists precisely so that dozens of growers can sell one consistent product, and it works.

The comparison, checked 27 August 2026

	Natural Delights	Desert Sun Dates
What it is	Brand for a growers’ cooperative	One family farm
Where	Bard Valley, AZ/CA border	Sky Valley, Coachella Valley, CA
How you buy it	Grocery, Walmart, Amazon — store locator on their site	Direct from the farm
Whose fruit you get	Pooled from member growers	Ours. There is only one farm.
Typical pack	Retail tubs — 8 oz, 12 oz, 1 lb, 2 lb	1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 12 lb boxes
Price	Whatever your store charges — usually less per pound than us	$19 for 1 lb up to $118 for 12 lb ($9.83/lb), shipping included
Availability	Almost everywhere, year round	Direct only; some varieties seasonal
Varieties	Medjool	Medjool, Zahidi, Barhi

Where they are genuinely better

Price and convenience. They are in the shop you are already standing in, and per pound they will usually undercut a box shipped to your door. If you want Medjool dates today, cheaply, without waiting for a courier, buy theirs. That is not a grudging concession; it is the right answer for a lot of people.

Consistency. Pooling fruit from many growers and grading it centrally smooths out the variation you get from a single orchard’s single season. A big packing house can hold a tighter standard than I can, because they have more fruit to choose from.

Small packs. They sell 8 oz and 12 oz tubs. Our smallest is a pound, because shipping a half-pound box is not economic. If you just want a few dates for a recipe, a tub from the shop makes more sense than a box from me.

Where we are better

You know exactly whose farm it came from. Ours grew on Longvue Road in Sky Valley. I picked them, I sorted them, I packed the box. With a co-op brand that question has no single answer, by design.

Fewer hands and fewer miles between the tree and you. Their fruit goes from grower to central packhouse to distributor to store to shelf, and sits at each stop. Ours goes from our shed to a shipping label. I am not going to invent a number for how much fresher that makes it, because it depends on how long a particular tub sat in a particular shop — but the chain is shorter and that is simply true.

Three varieties, not one. We grow Medjool, Zahidi and Barhi. Zahidi is a different fruit altogether — golden, firm, nutty, much better for baking and savoury cooking — and we go into it in our Zahidi vs Medjool comparison. Barhi is fresh, custard-textured and almost impossible to find at retail because it does not travel well through a distribution chain. That is exactly the kind of fruit only a direct sale can get to you.

Whole fruit with the pits in. We sell dates whole because the pit is what keeps the fruit from drying out and losing its texture — here is the longer explanation. Retail tubs are usually pitted for convenience, which is a fair trade if convenience is what you want, and the wrong trade if texture is.

Buying in quantity. If you go through dates — a household that eats them daily, a caterer, a congregation buying for a holiday — our 12 lb box is $118 delivered, which is $9.83 a pound with nothing added at checkout. Buying that quantity in retail tubs costs considerably more.

You can come and stand in the grove. Call the farm on (760) 501-1845 and I will walk you down the rows.

Which should you buy?

Buy Natural Delights if you want dates today, you want the lowest price per pound, you want a small tub, you want them pitted, or you want the same product reliably every time.

Buy from us if you want to know which farm grew them, you want whole fruit with the pits in, you want Zahidi or Barhi as well as Medjool, you are buying in quantity, or you would rather your money went to the person who picked the fruit.

They are a good product and a well-run co-op. I am one family with one grove, and the only things I can offer that they structurally cannot are a shorter chain, unusual varieties, and a name and a phone number attached to the box.

Our Medjool dates →  ·  Bulk from $9.83/lb →  ·  What is in stock today →

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Written by Jason Shopshear, who grows Medjool, Zahidi and Barhi dates at Desert Sun Dates in Sky Valley, California. Details about Natural Delights were read from their public website on 27 August 2026 and are described as published; no retail price is quoted for their products because those are set by individual stores, not by them. If anything here is inaccurate, email me and I will correct it.