Behind the Brand
Joolies was founded by Dave Kohl, a Wisconsin native and NYU School of Law graduate who decided to go into farming. After graduating from law school in 1995, Dave moved to California and acquired some acreage in the Coachella Valley, where he planted his first date trees 6 years later. Inspired by his wife, who had established a health-conscious household and always fed the family organic foods, Dave became one of the first date growers to grow 100% organic medjool dates. In order to increase his yield and optimize his farming methods, Dave decided to take a trip to Israel to study date trees. He ended up bringing an Israeli grower back to his farm for two years, during which the grower implemented Israeli farming practices and helped catapult their output.
Over time, Dave began to realize that not many people had tried organic medjool dates and that the delicious fruits were severely under-appreciated. He wanted to do for dates what Halos and Cuties had done for mandarins. In 2013, Dave trademarked the name “Joolies” with the intention of building a bright, playful date brand that would appeal to adults and children alike. Two years later, he met his co-founder Greg Willsey, former Director of Strategy and M&A at The Wonderful Company and the CFO/COO at Pom, and the duo launched Joolies in 2018. Now with 500 acres of date orchard on which each date is carefully hand-picked, Joolies has become one of the fastest-growing and most beloved organic medjool date companies in the country.