If you don’t spend your life on TikTok, you may have missed the latest viral sweet trend. However, it seems you won’t be able to ignore it for much longer, as the hot sensation of “Dubai Chocolate” is becoming mainstream. This trend gained momentum thanks to a December 2023 video, which garnered 120 million views and turned the product by Emirati chocolate maker FIX into a global phenomenon, spawning numerous imitators.
These chocolate-pistachio treats were first invented in 2021 by Sarah Hamouda, a Dubai-based engineer of British-Egyptian descent, during her pregnancy with her second child. The craving for sweets, common among pregnant women, not only affected Hamouda but inspired her to create a chocolate snack filled with sweet and sticky pistachio cream, tahini, and kadaif. “It was a passion I didn’t expect,” she said. “I started learning everything I could about chocolate, and with the help of amazing people, I managed to turn my dream into reality. But I never imagined Dubai Chocolate would become such a global craze.”
To understand the scale of this phenomenon, just look at pistachio prices worldwide. They have surged from $7.65 per pound (about 0.45 kg) a year ago to $10.30 today. This meteoric rise in Dubai Chocolate’s popularity has caused a global pistachio supply crisis, worsened the overall shortage of the green nut, and led to skyrocketing prices.
The chocolate isn’t cheap, as it costs no less than £10 for 145 grams in the UK—more than double the price of other Lindt snacks. Yet consumers are so eager to buy it that some stores reportedly limit the number of bars each customer can purchase. “It’s as if it came out of nowhere, and suddenly you see it in every corner store,” Charles Jeandro, CEO of British chocolate brand Prestat, told the Financial Times. “No one was prepared for this.”
The rising demand for pistachios coincides with limited supply following a disappointing harvest last year in the U.S. According to Iranian customs data, Iran (the world’s second-largest pistachio producer) increased its pistachio exports to the UAE by about 40% in the six months between October 2024 and March 2025, compared to the full 12 months prior. This marks a sharp reversal from 2023, a year when global pistachio supplies exceeded demand and caused prices to drop.
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Farmers in California have started planting pistachio orchards instead of almonds, whose prices have been declining. However, these pistachio trees will only yield crops by the next harvest in September. In the meantime, chocolate manufacturers lack sufficient raw materials to meet the demand for filled snacks.
Chocolate enthusiasts have already endured a cocoa supply crisis, which led to nearly tripling prices in 2024 as extreme weather and diseases damaged crops. Manufacturers are now selling smaller snack sizes with new recipes that reduce cocoa content.
The success of Dubai Chocolate has been so overwhelming that FIX has expressed concerns about imitators using its branding and confusing customers. The company, which branded its original viral snack with the slogan “Can’t Get Knafeh of It” (a pun based on the famous dessert knafeh), does not sell its snacks outside the UAE and only makes them available for two hours a day.
Nonetheless, competitors are undeterred. “We’re simply flooded with demand for Dubai Chocolate,” Johannes Läderach, CEO of Swiss chocolate maker Läderach, told the Financial Times. “We launched them a few months ago, and the demand just hasn’t stopped.”