The spice trade has spanned the world for thousands of years – but the global pandemic almost brought it to a standstill.
As the world went into lockdown, the complex networks that produce, transport, process and package spices were thrown into disarray, reports BBC.
Who would harvest the crops? Who would run the processing plants? How could spices be taken to ports so they could be sent on to buyers abroad? And who would check the goods for safety?
At the same time, global demand for spices was skyrocketing – consumers stocked their cupboards for a long stint of home-cooking, and spices such as cinnamon, cumin and black pepper suddenly became essential ingredients. Those thought to have medicinal benefits, such as turmeric and ginger, also saw increased demand as consumers sought to protect their health.
Watch our film about how the spice trade changed during the pandemic
India, the world’s largest producer, consumer and exporter of spices, faced its own country-wide lockdown in late March, making it difficult for farmers and processors who rely on migrant workers to move goods along the chain. To make sure its populations had enough to eat, India and Vietnam – another major spice grower – temporarily closed their borders to exports of certain foods.
Spices piled up at ports and domestic markets were flooded, sending the price of Indian cardamom tumbling 50% and Vietnamese pepper 10%. This was temporary, though, and soon international spice trading was back up – and booming.
Spices from India were, as usual, particularly sought after. Not only does the country have a rich history of growing spices, but its varied climate and terrain are known to produce particularly fragrant crops.
By June, sales of Indian spice exports had jumped by $67m (£52m) compared with June 2019, to reach $359m (£277m), according to the Associated Chambers of Commerce of India.
That should be good news for India’s tens of thousands of small spice farmers. But according to Tomy Mathew, founder of the spice growers co-operative, Fair Trade Alliance of Kerala, the rise in demand hasn’t yet resulted in a rise in prices at the farmgate.
Many growers have been feeling financially squeezed by the knock on effects of India’s lockdown, with relatives returning home from cities when jobs in the informal economy became impossible.
“Many spice growers now have more people to feed and have lost the extra income relatives were sending home,” says Mathew. “So, if the demand in spices was reflected in the farmgate price, it would make a big difference – this crisis proves more than ever that trade justice is important.”
Still, for others in the spice trade, this boom has helped them cope with the challenges brought by the pandemic.
“Demand for our spices increased 15% in April and May,” says Viju Jacob, managing director of Synthite Industries, one of India’s biggest processors of ground spices and oleoresins – concentrated flavours and aromas extracted from spices and used by food manufacturers.
“Thank God we are in a good sector for doing business [right now] because it is a tough time to make the process happen.”
Since most spice growers in India are small-scale family farmers, that process involves Synthite buying from 10,000 farmers to make up volumes – from hot chilli producers in Uttar Pradesh in the north to cinnamon growers in Kerala in the south.
Normally, farmers take their crops to Synthite’s local processing plants where they are quality checked, processed and packaged, then transported to warehouses and shipped to distribution hubs globally.
But the pandemic has disrupted this well-oiled chain. “Some areas of India have restrictions and so transportation has been an issue,” says Viju.
“We had some logistical problems getting goods from factories to ports, and a few weeks ago we had a ship from Colombo [in Sri Lanka] delayed – we did not have a crisis, but it was a challenge.”
However, this situation has improved, says Viju. The company has been importing turmeric and pepper from Vietnam and Indonesia to meet demand and has increased the number of Indian farmers it works with by 5-10%.
It has also used its scale to support 6,000-7,000 local families with donations of masks and spices, and has even been manufacturing PPE and hand sanitisers.
“We thought about what we could do [to help],” says Viju. “And whenever we grow, we want our community to grow.”
Once spices arrive at Synthite, they are carefully checked, including by one machine – which looks almost like a photocopier – that tests each sample for impurities.
“We need to have a clear 100% perfect product,” Viju says. “We have to have a thorough checking on the raw material, what is the quality, what is the pesticide, what is the industrial solvent – everything has to be checked.”
Quality control at processing plants has become even more important in the pandemic. There always has been fraudulent activity in the spice trade – one study of oregano, for example, found that up to 40% of batches were fake. But Chris Elliott, a professor of food safety at Queen’s University Belfast who led that study, believes that fraud has risen in the last six months.
“Prices being paid don’t add up – they should be going up due to [logistical] issues associated with Covid [and increased demand], but they’re not,” Elliott says. “Where is all the extra crop suddenly coming from?”
Normally, multiple quality-control checks take place along the spice chain to minimise faulty products reaching consumers. With inspectors less able to do these checks in person, other quality-control processes, such as the technologies that Synthite employs, have become even more important.
Elliott is working on one such technology himself: a digital “food fingerprinting” technology that, he says, would revolutionise spice testing and safety.
In conventional testing, samples have to be tested in a lab, meaning a product could have reached multiple countries by the time the results come back. With the fingerprinting technology, though, results are delivered on the spot.
A hand-held scanner shines a light on a sample and detects the molecules’ characteristic movements. This data is uploaded to the cloud, where each spice’s “fingerprint” is held – the specific way its molecules rotate, buzz and wobble. Contaminated agents will affect this and so would immediately show up.
“We’re rolling it out with good actors in the chain – we’ll collect thousands of samples across the world and will be able to create maps of fraudulent activity,” says Elliott.
With the Covid-19 pandemic showing little signs of ending soon, the high demand for spices could continue. Whether its benefits will reach farmers is still to be seen, but new technology could at least create a more transparent chain where trustworthy traders are rewarded.
