Khudri Dates

Semi-dry Saudi volume date — size-graded, year-round FCL

Khudri — spelt khodari or khudary on plenty of invoices, all the same fruit — is the highest-volume date in the Saudi export book. It grows across the central Kingdom, principally around Al-Kharj and Al-Ghat in the Riyadh region, with meaningful production around Madinah, and it is the variety Saudi packers can supply in full-container quantities every month of the year. The fruit is dark brown, elongated and visibly wrinkled, with firm, chewy flesh and a plain caramel sweetness. Commercially, the point is its moisture class: Khudri is a semi-dry date, typically packed at 14–18% moisture, which makes it ambient-tolerant and forgiving in transit in a way soft varieties never are. Harvest runs from late August into October; fruit is then held in cold store and drawn down across the year, so a January shipment is normal rather than a compromise. Grading is by size — Jumbo, Large, Medium and Small, expressed as a count per kilogramme — and by condition, with Grade A reserved for whole, uniform, unblemished fruit and a processing grade covering broken and off-size fruit. Export cartons move under SFDA registration with a phytosanitary certificate and Halal certification, and the better packers hold HACCP or ISO 22000 accreditation; confirm the disinfestation method on the health certificate, since several destination markets no longer accept methyl bromide fumigation.

Khudri is the correct answer when the brief reads "good Saudi date at the lowest landed cost" — and the wrong answer for almost anything else. It sits at the bottom of the Saudi price ladder: below Khalas, well below Sukkari and Safawi, and at a small fraction of Ajwa, which is exactly why it dominates price-led retail packs, Ramadan volume promotions, foodservice and the ingredient trade in paste, chopped dates and bakery fillings. The classic spec error runs in both directions. Dressing Khudri in a gift box against Ajwa or Mabroom disappoints the end customer; equally, paying the Jumbo premium on fruit destined for a grinder wastes money that Medium, Small or processing grade would have saved — once the fruit is chopped or pasted, the size premium is gone. What moves the price is size grade first, then crop year and the Ramadan demand spike; buyers who fix volume in October–December, straight off harvest, generally beat those chasing stock in the two months before Ramadan. On logistics, dry containers are acceptable for cooler-season loadings, but specify reefer at 0–4 °C for summer shipments out of Jeddah or Dammam and for any stock you intend to hold, because warm storage accelerates the surface sugaring that leaves older Khudri looking grey and crystallised on shelf. Contract current-season crop explicitly; a 20 ft box takes roughly 18 tonnes in bulk cartons.