TIMELESS TRADITIONS, ENDURING MARKETS: HERITAGE SWEETS AT ISM MIDDLE EAST

Some products don't need a trend to drive them. Turkish delight has been traded across borders since the Ottoman Empire. Halwa has anchored celebrations from the Gulf to the subcontinent for generations. Mithai is woven into every major milestone across South Asia and its diaspora. Date confections are the language of hospitality across the entire Arab world. These are not categories looking for a market; they are categories that are the market.

ISM Middle East brings the world's finest producers of heritage sweets to Dubai and connects them directly with the buyers who supply the region's most important and fastest-growing consumer markets.

TRENDS TRANSFORMING THE BUSINESS OF TRADITIONAL SWEETS

Premiumisation Is Redefining the Entire Sector

Across every traditional sweet format, buyers are trading up. In the 2025 festive season, gourmet mithai featuring saffron and edible gold commanded prices exceeding ₹1 lakh per kilogram IMARC - a signal that consumers across the region's key markets will pay significant premiums for authenticity, craft and presentation. The same shift is playing out in lokum, halwa  and date confections, where luxury packaging, artisan recipes and premium ingredients are unlocking higher margins for both producers and retailers.

Packaging as a Commercial Lever

The unboxing experience is now as important as the product itself. Across lokum, mithai and date confections, luxury gift-worthy packaging with elegant designs and sustainable materials is becoming increasingly important for premium positioning IMARC particularly for festive gifting, corporate hampers and modern trade listings. Producers who have invested in packaging are accessing price tiers that were previously unavailable to them.

Health-Conscious Reformulation Without Losing Heritage

Traditional sweets are being reimagined in 2026, bite-sized formats designed for mindful indulgence are rising and products reformulated with dates, jaggery and natural sweeteners are gaining significant traction The Style List, all while preserving the authentic flavour profiles that define the category. Sugar-free halwa, reduced-sugar lokum and clean-label mithai are no longer niche, they are becoming a standard part of any serious producer's export range.

Export-Ready Formats Opening New Markets

Indian manufacturers are adopting modern processing and packaging technologies, experimenting with clean-label ingredients and creating export-ready products that balance authenticity with global standards Indusfood and the same shift is underway among Turkish and Levantine producers. The result is a generation of traditional sweet brands that are ready to be listed, distributed and scaled in international markets.

  • Baklava

  • Kunafa

  • Halva

  • Maamoul

  • Umm Ali

  • Basbousa

  • Luqaimat

  • Qatayef

  • Ghraybeh

  • Zalabia

  • Gulab Jamun

  • Jalebi

  • Rasgulla

  • Sandesh

  • Turkish Delight (Lokum)

  • Pryaniki (spiced honey cookies)

  • Pastila (fruit confection)

  • Medovik (honey cake)