Family tradition in the Persian Gulf
The date palm is one of the oldest fruit trees in the world, with the earliest pictures dating back to 3000 BC. The Persian Gulf, known as the home of the date palm, is the region with the strongest tradition for its cultivation in the whole of Persia. In the hinterland of the port city of Bandar Abbas, the hot, dry desert climate offers ideal conditions for date growing and visitors will encounter grove after grove of date palms. It is to this area that Dombaz Food GmbH traces its roots, and where, back in the 17th century, the ancestors of my grandfather, Hassan Ghanaatian Jabzari, already enjoyed high regard throughout the region as ‘maher’ for the fertilisation of date palms.
From the date to the range
My grandfather, Mohammad Reza Ghanaatian Jabzari, continued this family tradition, gradually building his reputation until he was a respected specialist. As well as owning his own date grove, he also received a fixed share of the harvests of the date farmers he worked for as a reward for pollinating their plants. When my grandfather returned from the date groves in the evening, my grandmother Khojasteh Huschiar would sort the fruits according to ripeness and quality, and store them in the cellar of their house.
My grandmother inherited traditional recipes from her grandmother that extended the longevity of the dates, and also tried out her own ideas in her small kitchen. She chopped and juiced the dates, added aromatic ingredients, and gradually developed a clutch of unique recipes from which she prepared new, deliciously sweet but also highly nutritious products such as date syrup, date paste, date bread, date biscuits and date vinegar, as well as a distillate.
She began to sell her date products within the family, and to neighbours and traders at the local weekly market in Jahrom. My grandmother was a very shrewd woman, and it was her business acumen back in 1954 that laid the foundation for our current family business.
A vegan world first
My father, Hassan Ghanaatien Jabzari, decided to systematically expand the knowledge and experience that our family had accumulated over the centuries. He acquired a licence to pack dates in 1998, founded the Khormabon Jonoub Corporation and optimised work processes from day one.
He also invested in new technologies, and within a few months had created a solid foundation for the success of our rapidly growing company.
We became the market leader for Piarom dates, one of the finest varieties in the world, and prioritised the development of delicious new date products. Just four years after the establishment of Khormabon Jonoub, we enjoyed a significant world first with the introduction of liquid date sugar – a natural vegan alternative to bees’ honey.
Our sights set firmly on the future
With our company now in its third generation, we are carrying on our family’s tradition and still love the natural sweetness of our dates. Both our current success and our future rest on three sturdy pillars:
The first of these pillars is production. Our machines meet all the latest technical standards and my brother Farzad, as deputy managing director and technical production manager, sees to it that our work is carried out economically and efficiently.
We have all the necessary certificates for the German and international food markets.
The second pillar is research and development for new products. My sister Hamide is a nutritionist and heads the quality department at our headquarters in Bandar Abbas, right next to our date groves.
We take our customers’ needs seriously and our strengths include researching and developing new products, and tailoring existing products to your specific business requirements.
We do not compromise on quality. We buy our dates from our network of carefully selected local farmers and attach great importance to trading fairly with our suppliers. We also support organic farming in Iran.
The third pillar is expansion. Proximity to our European customers is very important to us. In my role as managing director, I have been building up our new site in Germany since 2020.
Our top priority here is customer satisfaction. We supply our customers with dates and date products from our branch in Siegen, and our new sales team in Germany is close at hand to take care of all of our customers’ needs directly.
Yours, Hossein Ghanaatian Jabzari
Our Vision
We have a shared goal
Our top priority here is customer satisfaction. We supply our customers with dates and date products from our branch in Siegen, and our new sales team in Germany is close at hand to take care of all of our customers’ needs directly.
