Sukkari Dates: Composition, Calories and Nutrition

What Sukkari dates are

Sukkari is a cultivar of Phoenix dactylifera, the date palm, grown mainly in Saudi Arabia. A 2025 review in Frontiers in Nutrition associates it particularly with the Al-Qassim region. The name comes from the Arabic for sugar, which reflects how the variety is known: it is one of the sweetest commercially traded dates.

In appearance it is quite different from the dark Madinah varieties. The same review describes Sukkari as plump and slightly oval, golden yellow through to dark golden brown, with soft, shiny skin and moist, tender, chewy flesh carrying a caramel-like taste. Sellers distinguish a softer and a firmer type, with the softer usually preferred.

It is also inexpensive relative to the premium Madinah cultivars. One Madinah seller listed luxury grade Sukkari at SAR 40 per kilogram on 30 October 2026, against Ajwa grades from SAR 56 to SAR 130 per kilogram on the same site.

That combination, very sweet and comparatively cheap, is the useful starting point for a nutrition discussion. The honest question about Sukkari is not what it cures. It is how much sugar and energy you are taking on, and what you get alongside it.

Calories and macronutrients

The numbers, and exactly where they come from

There is no USDA Foundation Foods or SR Legacy entry for Sukkari dates. Searching USDA FoodData Central for “Sukkari” on 30 October 2026 returned exactly one record, a branded commercial product: SWEET CARAMEL SUKKARI DATES, FDC ID 2592401, brand Natural Delights, brand owner Bard Valley Medjool Date Growers Association, published 29 June 2023, ingredients listed as “SUKKARI DATES”, stated serving 40 g described as two dates.

Here is that branded entry, with USDA’s generic Dates, medjool entry beside it for context.

The limitations of that table, stated plainly

The branded figures are manufacturer declared label values, not laboratory analysis by USDA. Label values in the Branded Foods dataset are rounded to label conventions, which is why fat appears as 0 g and several values land on round numbers. They describe one company’s product from one growing region, which for this brand is the Bard Valley area on the California and Arizona border, not Saudi Arabian Sukkari.

The Medjool column is different in kind. It is an SR Legacy entry derived from laboratory analysis, published 1 April 2019. Putting the two columns side by side is useful for rough orientation and nothing more. They were not produced by the same method, so the apparent 48 kcal difference between them should not be reported as a real difference between varieties.

Per date

USDA’s branded Sukkari entry states a 40 g serving as two dates, which implies about 20 g per date and about 65 kcal per date. That is a label derived figure, not a measured fruit weight, and date size varies substantially with grade and growing conditions. Treat it as an order of magnitude: a Sukkari date is roughly 60 to 70 kcal, and a modest handful of five reaches roughly 300 to 350 kcal.

For comparison, USDA lists one pitted Medjool at 24 g, about 66 kcal, and one pitted Deglet Noor at 7.1 g, about 20 kcal. Date varieties differ enormously by fruit size, so counting dates without knowing the variety tells you very little about energy intake.

What published research reports for Sukkari specifically

The 2025 Frontiers in Nutrition review compiles composition figures from several primary studies, reported on a dry weight basis. The ranges it gives are:

Two things to note. The ranges are wide, particularly fibre at 2.13 to 10.2 percent, because the underlying studies used different samples and methods, and the review itself says its sources conflict. And these are dry weight figures, which are not directly comparable with the per 100 g as-eaten figures in the USDA table above. The review reports glucose at 51.80 g, fructose at 47.50 g and sucrose at 3.20 g per 100 g dry weight from one cited study, which indicates a glucose and fructose dominant profile rather than a sucrose one, in line with most date varieties.

A separate 2022 study in the Journal of the Saudi Society of Agricultural Sciences measured moisture and glucose across 35 Saudi date varieties bought from local markets. Moisture across all varieties ranged from 7.3 to 29.2 g per 100 g fresh weight, highest in Safawi. The variety closest to Sukkari in that paper is listed as “Sukari Alriyad”, which it reported with the second highest glucose reading of the 35. That is a regional sample under a regional name, so it supports the general picture of Sukkari as a high sugar variety without being a definitive Sukkari measurement.

Fibre and micronutrients

The genuinely useful part of a date’s profile is what travels with the sugar.

Fibre. The branded Sukkari entry declares 7.5 g per 100 g, and the published dry weight range is 2.13 to 10.2 percent. Taking the lower, label-based figure, a 40 g serving supplies around 3 g of fibre. UK guidance puts adult fibre intake at 30 g a day, which most adults do not reach, averaging about 20 g. So two Sukkari dates make a measurable but modest contribution, roughly a tenth of a day’s target.

Potassium. 625 mg per 100 g on the branded label, so around 250 mg in a 40 g serving. Dates are a genuinely good potassium source relative to their weight, which is one of the few nutritional claims about them that holds up without qualification.

Magnesium and calcium. The branded label declares 50 mg calcium per 100 g and does not declare magnesium. FAO’s reference work on date palm cultivation reports potassium as about 50 percent of date ash and magnesium about 12 percent, with magnesium around 600 mg per kg of fruit. Those are general date figures, not Sukkari figures.

B vitamins and vitamin E. The Frontiers in Nutrition review reports Sukkari vitamin values per gram of dry weight, including thiamin, niacin, vitamin B6, folate and vitamin E at 19.74 mg mainly as alpha-tocopherol. We are not reproducing those figures as a nutrient table here, for a specific reason: the review’s own table lists vitamin B12 at exactly the same value as thiamin, 0.55 mg, and dates are a plant food in which meaningful B12 would be unexpected. That looks like a transcription error in the source. Where a published table contains an internal inconsistency, the responsible thing is to flag it rather than copy it.

Iron. 1.0 mg per 100 g declared, so about 0.4 mg per 40 g serving. That is a small contribution against adult requirements, and it is non-haem iron, which is less readily absorbed than iron from animal sources.

The overall picture: Sukkari delivers real potassium, useful fibre and small amounts of several micronutrients, carried in a food that is roughly three quarters sugar by weight. Nothing in that profile makes it exceptional among dried fruits. Nothing in it makes it a problem food either.

What the research on dates and blood sugar actually shows

This is the section where most articles about dates overclaim in one direction or the other. Here is what the human evidence contains, graded.

Glycaemic index measurements: moderate quality, variety specific

Dates in people with type 2 diabetes: one reasonable trial, null result

What the laboratory and animal work shows, and why it is not enough

Portion context

Specific portion prescriptions for an individual belong to that person’s clinician or dietitian, not to an article. What a page like this can usefully do is give you the arithmetic and the public guidance so you can have an informed conversation.

The general guidance on dried fruit. NHS 5 A Day guidance counts about 30 g of dried fruit as one portion, roughly a heaped tablespoon of raisins or three prunes. Diabetes UK uses the same 30 g portion and notes that such a serving can contain as much as 20 g of carbohydrate. It also advises spreading fruit intake across the day rather than eating a lot in one sitting, because dried fruit is easy to over-consume.

What that means for Sukkari. At the label-derived figure of about 20 g per date, a 30 g dried fruit portion is one and a half Sukkari dates. Two dates is about 40 g, roughly 65 to 70 kcal each and around 30 g of carbohydrate in total. Five dates is roughly 100 g, which on the branded figures is about 325 kcal and 62 g of sugar.

Where sugar guidance fits. WHO recommends that free sugars be kept below 10 percent of total energy intake, about 50 g a day on a 2,000 kcal diet, and suggests a further reduction to below 5 percent as a conditional recommendation. Critically, the WHO definition of free sugars covers sugars added by a manufacturer, cook or consumer plus those naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices and fruit juice concentrates. It does not cover the sugars in fresh fruits and vegetables. Dried fruit sits in an awkward position in that definition: it is not fresh fruit and it is not a juice, and WHO’s guideline does not resolve it explicitly. The practical upshot is that you should not assume dates fall outside the free sugars target, and you should not assume they fall inside it either.

The one thing that is not in dispute. Energy density. Dates are a small, easy to eat, highly palatable food with roughly three times the calorie density of a fresh apple per gram. If you are managing energy intake, dates are a food worth counting rather than grazing on. That is true of every variety, and it is more true of a variety whose selling point is its sweetness.

Dental considerations

This is a real, well established and frequently omitted point about dates.

Dried fruit is sticky and high in sugar, so it sits on tooth surfaces. WHO states that plaque converts sugars from food and drink into acids that destroy the tooth over time, and that a continued high intake of free sugars together with inadequate fluoride exposure and poor plaque removal leads to caries. Untreated caries in permanent teeth is the most common health condition worldwide according to the Global Burden of Disease 2021.

NHS guidance is specific about dried fruit. It notes that dried fruit can be bad for teeth because it is high in sugar and sticky, recommends fresh fruit instead as a between-meal snack, and advises eating dried fruit as part of a meal, such as at the end of one, rather than on its own between meals.

Applied to Sukkari, which is soft, moist and among the sweetest dates in trade, the sensible practice is:

• Eat them with or at the end of a meal rather than grazing through a bowl across an afternoon
• Rinse with water afterwards, since frequency of sugar exposure matters alongside quantity
• Follow standard dental advice on brushing twice daily with fluoride toothpaste at 1,000 to 1,500 ppm, which WHO identifies as essential to caries prevention
• Treat this as more relevant, not less, for children, whose snacking patterns tend towards frequency

This is established public health guidance, not a claim specific to Sukkari. It applies to any sticky dried fruit.

Where Sukkari fits among the varieties

Taken as a food rather than a remedy, Sukkari has a clear place. It is soft, very sweet, caramel-flavoured and relatively inexpensive, which makes it a good everyday eating and cooking date. Its sweetness means it works well where you want a date to carry sweetness into something else, and its price means you are not using an expensive fruit to do it.

It is not interchangeable with the premium Madinah cultivars in terms of why people buy those. If you are looking at dates for reasons of religious observance, that is a different question and a different variety. For a comparison of the two most sought after premium dates, see Ajwa vs Medjool. For the wider variety landscape, see other date varieties and the best dates in the world.