Sticker shock hit me so forcefully in the grocery store that I yanked my hand back faster than if it had been a hot stove – $10 for a bottle of ground cloves. What in the world!? I looked at the price of other spices and my mouth fell open.
I thought it must just be that store, so I shopped elsewhere.
The price of spices, those little bits of flavoring that make food delicious, had soared two or three times the costs I remembered.
The drastic increase did not compute – not even with the current rate of inflation. I checked Amazon.com and Ebay. By the time I added shipping and handling, there was no price difference, plus I would have to wait for delivery before I could replenish my spice rack.
Frustrated and curious about the drastic change in cost, I googled the cost of cloves and discovered that cloves had made headline news in the spice world along with several other spices. According to peppertrade.com, floods, hurricanes, typhoons, unknown diseases and earthquakes on the other side of the world have seriously impacted the growth of many spice-producing plants.
I explored the reasons behind the cost increase for cloves – the one spice I really needed.
According to peppertrade.com, an unknown disease has destroyed the trees in major growing areas in Manado and Java – which contribute 80 percent of the clove production. Clove trees require five to seven years to bear fruit, so expect small crops and high costs for a few years.
“The current Indonesian prices are the highest ever in cloves history following a nearly-total crop failure, with 90 percent of the trees affected by the disease. If the situation continues, prices can even touch $20,000 a ton given the lower crop in other origins also,” the peppertrade.com report said.
One disease effecting 90 percent of the trees in an island country on the other side of the world snatched dollars out of my hand at the supermarket. And, news clips from around the world guarantee my spice rack will be touched in other ways.
Cyclones in Madagascar destroyed vanilla crops. Hurricanes in the West Indies affected nutmeg trees and unpredictable monsoons in India cut chili harvests.
Cardamom yields in Sri Lanka were down sharply this year after heavy rains caused flooding and landslides. The crop was also disrupted in Guatemala.
The global demand for black pepper has far outstripped supply – plus India has been hit by crop failures owing to the late monsoon rains in 2009 and disease and high temperatures and drought in Brazil.
The erratic monsoon season damaged the chili harvest in India.
Coriander saw a price spike after the late monsoons affected growing conditions and cut production.
Brokers in Europe blame the rise in domestic price of paprika on stricter pesticide and toxin rules that have restricted supply.
An earthquake in 2009 in Indonesia caused a major disruption to the cinnamon crop harvested from the inner bark of trees that take 15 years to mature.
The price of ginger has been hit by both strong demand in China and a smaller than expected crop in India.
I am not alone in suffering sticker shock at high prices and short supplies. “Manufacturers of ready meals are changing their recipes because they need something more constant,” said Anant Mathur, of British importer The Rice ‘n Spice International. “The taste of food is going to change.”
Not that it hasn’t already for those following medical advice to reduce the salt level in diets. Less salt means more spices – and therefore higher prices with the increased demand for other spices, according to Anthony Palmer, UK General Manager of Schwartz.
By the time I finished my brief education in the economics of spices, I resigned myself to more expensive cakes, cookies and pies and bought that pricey jar of cloves.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at jhershberger@eldoradonews.com.)