Now shipping to Canada! - Can you help the Bautista family?

Update: U.S. orders here; Canadian orders here!

Dec 22, 2011 news: Honeys will soon sell out for this season. Order soon if you'd like some! They'll keep for months, even a year, in the fridge or freezer.

I learned the Bautista family's story while ordering dates in October. It moved me to help this family achieve their dream: to increase their mail order business.

Quite a humble dream. Why? Because in 2004, while driving home from another day of selling dates at farmers markets, Enrique Bautista was paralyzed in a car accident. The family – Enrique's 5 children, and their families too – returned to the date ranch across the street from their childhood home, and now work on the farm, under the continued leadership of their quadriplegic father.

They dream of selling enough dates through the mail, so they can stay at the farm, instead of commuting to farmers markets.

So that the Bautista family could start accepting web orders right away, I built www.7hotdates.com. The site took off here on 30bad! Thank you to everyone who has ordered from the site and raved about the wonderful and affordable dates.

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Permalink Reply by gvn2fly kristin on September 1, 2011 at 12:51pm

Harrison, any luck now? Or, what does the screen say when you try to access the site?

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Permalink Reply by David on September 1, 2011 at 12:45pm

My barhi dates have arrived and they are in the khalal state just like 7hotdates said they ship them in. I ate one, but I don't think I could eat it in this state. It doesn't seem ripe to me at all. It's very sweet and I can taste the unripeness. Does anyone like it in this state? Anyway I'm going to wait until they ripen to the rutab state. They'll probably be really good then.

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Permalink Reply by gvn2fly kristin on September 1, 2011 at 12:49pm

Nah, I always wait til they get at least a bit of translucence. I think they're best when they're >75% translucent, so they are really sweet but still with some texture. A lot of SAD'ers go wild for crunchy/khalal Barhis, but every 811er i know eats them ripe/rutab. You've passed the litmus test ;)

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Permalink Reply by Rach on September 2, 2011 at 6:24am

I didn't like the crunchy at all. I am now patiently waiting for them to ripen. :)

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Permalink Reply by Rach on September 2, 2011 at 6:25am

and you're already sold out! nice!

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Permalink Reply by Robert K on September 10, 2011 at 6:33am

Just got my order of barhi dates and the package was leaking as 50% of the dates were smashed :( They probably threw it around like any other package while mailing it. There needs to be better packaging or a way to make sure they won't get completely destroyed otherwise i don't want to lose 50% of the dates each order just because of the mail :/

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Permalink Reply by gvn2fly kristin on September 10, 2011 at 7:17am

Hey Robert, I talked to Alicia @ Bautista this morning and she mentioned an issue that sounds like it was this order. In the case she mentioned, the recipient refused the box and Bautista is refunding the payment.

The issue was that the Barhis should have been hard and yellow when they got to you, and instead they were ripe. To put that in context, my Barhis from Bautista took several weeks to get ripe, and I'm in San Diego without A/C -- it's been quite warm. So, it seems last week was especially hot, and that, combined with the longer transit time to Canada, caused the dates to ripen in record time.

So, i don't think different packaging would have solved this. The problem was most likely the weather and the longer time to get to Canada.

I suppose the options, then, would be to

not ship to Canada until the weather cools significantly (which would mean not shipping Barhis at all), or
Ship only with expedited shipping (which would probably double or triple the cost)
Or, the status quo - continue shipping to Canada with the cheaper rates, with the risk that occasionally something might go wrong (Alicia said that this was the only complaint/issue with the zillions of Barhi shipments).

What do you think? Any other Canadians are welcome to add their thoughts too. :)

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Permalink Reply by WildBodyKev on September 10, 2011 at 1:12pm

Keep shipping to Canada. It's worth it. I had no issues with my order.

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Permalink Reply by Robert K on September 11, 2011 at 6:30am

Leaving the shipping as is may be a good idea if you guys put a slight little warning on the canadian page noting that in warmer months it is possible that there is a chance that the dates won't arrive 100% completely in shape.

I'm most likely going to try a bit later in the year to buy again, and hopefully nothing goes wrong :)

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Permalink Reply by Cam on October 20, 2011 at 4:05am

Are you still looking for a food photographer?

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Permalink Reply by gvn2fly kristin on December 23, 2011 at 7:14am

Cam sorry for my huge delay! (and good to "see" you again!)

We always welcome date photos, please do send them to web AT 7hotdates.com and note which variety it is, and we'll be glad to credit you whenever your photo appears in the newsletter or website. Thank you!

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Permalink Reply by gvn2fly kristin on December 23, 2011 at 7:16am

Those on the 7HOTDATES email list just received some pretty cool trivia about Honey dates. And there's more that you should know: Honeys will soon sell out for this season. Order soon if you'd like some! They'll keep for months, even a year, in the fridge or freezer.