Every lot names the farm and what it paid
Single-origin spice bought at the farm gate, shipped with the grower, the harvest date and the price paid printed on the lot certificate.
How the trade is run
The price is the part that makes the rest checkable
Spice moves through so many hands between a field and a container that origin becomes a story rather than a fact, and grade becomes whatever the seller says it is. We buy at the farm gate, keep each lot separate through cleaning and packing, and print the grower, the village, the harvest date and the price we paid on the certificate that travels with it. The price is the part nobody else publishes and the part that makes the rest verifiable.
A lot is as small as a farm is
What the certificates cover
And, more usefully, what they do not.
Certifies the land and the inputs on the 41 farms. It says nothing about what happened after the crop left them, which is why we keep lots separate.
Food safety management across cleaning, drying and packing at the Mattancherry facility.
Ours, not a body’s: grower, village, harvest date, moisture, and the farm-gate price. Travels with every consignment.
Every lot, at an accredited laboratory, with the report number on the certificate rather than a pass mark.
Idukki Cardamom, Lot 24-C
Eight-millimetre bold green cardamom from four adjoining smallholdings above Kumily, harvested in the third week of November and dried in an electric drier at 50 degrees rather than over a fire — which is what keeps the colour green and the volatile oil above six per cent. Four hundred and ten kilos exist. When they are gone the listing comes down and the next Idukki lot will be a different farm with a different profile, described honestly rather than matched to this one.
- Origin
- Four smallholdings above Kumily, Idukki
- Harvest
- Third week of November
- Grade
- 8 mm bold green, hand sorted
- Volatile oil
- 6.2 per cent
- Moisture
- 10.4 per cent
- Farm-gate price
- Printed on the lot certificate
- Lot size
- 410 kg
What the certificate changed
The farm-gate price on the certificate is the only one I have seen from any supplier in fourteen years. It let me answer a question from our own sustainability team that I had previously had to answer with a shrug.
A lot ran out mid-season and they told me the next one would taste different rather than sending me something matched. I had to reformulate a blend and I would still rather have that than the alternative.
We print the village name on our own packaging now, which we could not do before because no supplier would commit to one in writing.
Ask any supplier what the farmer was paid
Including us. It is the question that separates a traceability claim from a story, and almost nobody in this trade will answer it in writing.