The Product Move
Ghirardelli Chocolate Company is launching Dubai Style Chocolate SQUARES®, placing a milk chocolate shell around a pistachio-cream and crispy kataifi filling in a taller-profile version of its iconic individually wrapped square. The 4.4 oz. bag retails at a suggested $10.99 and is available at major national retailers and directly through Ghirardelli.com — putting a premium, import-adjacent flavor profile squarely in the everyday candy aisle.
The move is worth tracking for anyone sourcing ingredients, building menus, or planning seasonal beverage and dessert programs. Dubai-style chocolate — built around the pistachio-kataifi core — reached viral saturation on social platforms roughly 18 months ago, driven heavily by specialty importers and boutique chocolatiers. When a 170-plus-year brand with mass-retail shelf space codifies a format around it, the trend has crossed from niche into category signal.
What This Signals for Operators
For foodservice operators and retail buyers, Ghirardelli's launch is a leading indicator, not breaking news. The more useful read is velocity: the time from social virality to mass retail placement compressed to under two years for Dubai-style chocolate, consistent with the speed seen in formats like mochi donuts and birria. Operators who waited to see mainstream validation before menu-testing pistachio-kataifi applications are now entering a market that premium retail is already harvesting.
Bobby Oliver, Vice President and Head of Marketing at Ghirardelli, framed the launch as a deliberate extension of the brand's earlier Dubai-style exploration into its most recognizable format — not a reactive pivot. That distinction matters for buyers evaluating whether to position pistachio-forward SKUs as a trend window or a durable menu anchor. The kataifi element, which adds a shredded-pastry crunch, is the differentiator worth watching: texture-layered confections have shown staying power in premium beverage and dessert adjacencies where operators can command a margin premium.
Retail Readiness and Procurement Context
At $10.99 for 4.4 oz., the price point sits well above standard chocolate-square segments, signaling Ghirardelli is positioning this as a gifting and self-treat SKU rather than competing on everyday candy price. For hotel amenity programs, catering buyers, and specialty food distributors, that price architecture means room-drop or welcome-gift applications are viable without margin compression. The individually wrapped format, which Ghirardelli specifically engineered for the new taller-profile square, also lowers per-unit friction for hospitality portioning.
Ingredient buyers should note that mainstreaming of kataifi in CPG creates upward demand pressure on the shredded-pastry supply chain — a category historically concentrated among Middle Eastern and specialty Mediterranean suppliers. Operators building scratch-made or private-label programs around the format would benefit from locking in sourcing relationships before retail velocity fully reprices the ingredient tier.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
