The festival was inaugurated on Wednesday by Sameer Al-Rushaidi of the Ministry of Agriculture in the Eastern Province. Lulu Regional Manager Abdul Basheer said the festival is taking place at all of the company's GCC outlets through June 11.
"The same festival is taking place at more than 75 Lulu Hypermarkets spread across the Gulf," he said. "There is also an exclusive range of processed mango products, such as mango cake, mango basboosa, mango bread, mango pickle and mango laban."
The mangoes come in all different sizes. Some varieties are very small while others are very big. On display and for sale were the huge 1.2 kilo-plus Palmar mangoes to the Indian Chakkarakutti, the tiniest mango variety, weighing just 25 gm.
All of them are neatly displayed with proper names and country of origin. The hypermarket was buzzing with shoppers on Wednesday with nationals from many countries trying to fathom all the different varieties and making their purchasing decisions, which is made all the harder by the fact they are all being sold at cost Wednesday and Thursday.
"One of the reasons for the brisk selling is that we are selling mangoes at no profit for the first two days of the festival," said Abdul Basheer. "We are selling them at what we call cost-to-cost price; that is, we are only charging the customer for the landing cost of the product -- nothing else."
Friday regular prices return, but it is likely that many mangoes will already be going to kitchens by then.
