Mawlid Sweets Start at EGP 90 a Kilo in Hurghada, With Buyers Holding Back

Mawlid sweets are on sale in Hurghada from EGP 90 a kilo, but demand has been weak, the Shorouk news portal reported on 21 August.

The report put the entry price at 90 pounds per kilogram and described turnout at the city's sweet shops as soft. It did not give a top-end price, did not say how this year's figure compares with last year, and did not name the traders or shops it spoke to.

Halawet el-Mouled — the trays of sesame bars, nougat and nut brittle that fill Egyptian shop windows in the weeks before the Prophet's birthday — is one of the country's few genuinely seasonal foods. Families buy it to give away as much as to eat, which is why the trade tends to read early demand as a signal about household budgets rather than about appetite.

The timing matters this year. Hurghada News has reported that Egypt moved the Prophet's Birthday holiday to Thursday 27 August, and that the Red Sea marks Mawlid at Hurghada's Al-Dahar Mosque. That leaves the better part of a week for demand to pick up before the holiday itself.

For residents, EGP 90 is the number to carry into the shop: it is the floor, and the larger boxed assortments sit well above it.

For visitors in Hurghada this week, the displays are worth a look even without a purchase. Mawlid sweets appear on open sale in the city's older shopping streets for only a few weeks a year, and the trays themselves are part of the season.