Sourcing & Growers
Eleven growers, mills and curers. We name all of them, tell you what we pay in the cases where we are allowed to, and buy the same thing twice a year rather than shopping the spot market.
Spice is a commodity trade with a lot of intermediaries, and the ordinary way to buy is to take whatever the broker has at the price you want. We buy differently and more slowly: a named lot, a fixed volume agreed before the season, paid at 30 days rather than 90. It costs us between 20 and 40 percent more than commodity grade. It is the single biggest reason a jar is €12 and not €5.
Who grows what
| Ingredient | Grower or mill | Where | Since |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smoked paprika | Szabó smokehouse | Kalocsa, Hungary | 2019 |
| Turmeric & black pepper | Thekkady Estate co-op | Wayanad, Kerala, India | 2020 |
| Fennel pollen & seed | Poggio Casale | Le Marche, Italy | 2019 |
| San Marzano tomatoes | Casa Ferrini | Agro Sarnese-Nocerino, Italy | 2019 |
| Sesame | Öztürk mill | Karaman, Türkiye | 2021 |
| Chillies — ancho, chipotle | Rancho La Peña | Zacatecas, Mexico | 2021 |
| Urfa pepper | Demir family | Şanlıurfa, Türkiye | 2022 |
| Sea salt | Salina Sereno | Trapani, Sicily | 2019 |
| Honey | Boomgaard Ten Velde | Betuwe, Netherlands | 2020 |
| Garlic & onions | De Krayenhoff | Noordoostpolder, Netherlands | 2020 |
| Anchovy | Hermanos Ortiz | Santoña, Cantabria, Spain | 2022 |
| Barley miso | Nakagawa Shōten | Nagano, Japan | 2023 |
What we ask of them
- A named lot and a harvest date on every delivery, not a blend of “origin: EU”.
- A sample before we commit to the season, tasted blind against last year’s lot.
- Payment at 30 days. Small growers are not a source of working capital.
- Written confirmation of any treatment post-harvest — irradiation, fumigation, ethylene oxide. We do not buy irradiated spice.
What we get wrong
Two things, honestly. First, our supply chain is short but not transparent to the field in every case: the Kerala co-op aggregates from about ninety smallholders and we know the co-op, not each farm. Second, we fly nothing except the miso, which arrives by sea in a shared container twice a year, and the fennel pollen, which comes by road. When a lot fails on quality we sometimes have to buy commodity grade to keep a blend on the shelf — when that happens the jar carries a plain sticker saying so.
Air, sea and road
Roughly 88 percent of our raw material arrives by sea or road. Nothing in the range is air-freighted as standard. We are not carbon neutral and do not buy offsets, because we would rather spend the money on shorter routes than on certificates.
If you grow, mill or cure something you think belongs in this list, write to [email protected] with the lot detail and we will taste it. We answer every one, including the noes.