The country is targeting U.S. and Canadian markets, which the UAE is currently furnishing with supplies of the Iranian dates, taking advantage of a sanctions regime against Tehran.
Iran expects to produce 1 million metric tons of dates this year, 15% of which will be exported, head of the national Iranian dates association Rashid Farrokhi said on Monday.
The nuclear accord reached in July is expected to dismantle the sanctions regime and put Iran back on the global financial transfer system known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication or SWIFT.
"The resolution of the SWIFT and LC (Letter of Credit) problems will increase our date exports and open new markets for us, especially in North America,” Farrokhi said, quoted by the Tasnim news agency.
According to customs administration figures, Iranian dates are exported to 81 countries, mostly to the UAE, Pakistan, Turkey and Afghanistan. Countries as far as the UK and Germany and Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Australia and Malaysia also receive shipments of the popular fruit.
Iran is close behind Tunisia as the world’s largest exporter of dates, statistics provided by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) show. The Middle Eastern country exported $220 million of the staple in 2013 against $230 million by Tunisia.
Egypt is the world’s biggest producer of the fruit with 1.5 million metric tons, ahead of Iran.
Dates are regarded by many as a super-food that offers valuable nutrients. The fruit is free of saturated fat, sodium and cholesterol.
They are used in a variety of forms as syrup, sweetener or flavoring in biscuits, tart filling, jams, marmalades, milk shakes and other products. They have also industrial use in production of soft drinks, alcohol, yeast, liquid sugar and medicine.
The cultivation of date palms goes back to the dawn of civilization in Mesopotamia and prehistoric Egypt. Some researchers say Iranians were probably the first nation to use the date as a food and for medicine.
Iran cultivates about 400 varieties of dates but only seven cultivars -- Mazafati, Shahani, Sayer, Piarom, Zahedi, Kabkab and Astamaran -- are exported.
Mazafati, with its notes of caramel and sweet melting texture, accounts for the bulk of Iranian date exports. It mainly grows in an oasis in the historic citadel city of Bam which is recovering from a massive earthquake in 2003 in which more than 26,000 people were killed.  
Piarom, however, is the most expensive of the Iranian species, retailing for $4.4 per kilo in the market.
Dates are one of the five main export data-x-items among Iran’s agricultural products. Palm orchards, surpassing 25,000 hectares, are mainly centered in the tropical provinces of Hormuzgan, Khuzestan, Shiraz and Kerman.
Iran has even a bourse for its date stocks in Bushehr where farmers can offer their produce for sales. The industry, however, is traditional and indigenous in character, with palm growers still having to scale tall trees to cut and lower clusters of dates to the ground.
Also, one drawback of the sector is packaging which the government is trying to improve in order to boost added value and prevent bulk shipments to the UAE and elsewhere for re-exports.