Who you buy from

Your supplier is most of your product. It is the relationship worth the most attention and the one producers often pick on price and lead time.

Three kinds of supplier

Distributors sell small quantities, ship fast, carry everything, and cost the most per unit. They are how almost everybody starts and they are several steps from the field.

Importers deal in larger quantities at better prices and can usually tell you the origin, the season and the lot. This is where quality conversations become possible.

Growers apply to domestic herbs and chilies. Best story, most work, and the drying step becomes yours.

What separates a good one

They can answer four questions without hesitating: cleanliness certification, volatile oil figure, treatment method, and origin with a lot number. A supplier who can only discuss price is a commodity trader and your product will be a commodity.

They also tell you when a crop year is poor. A supplier who never has bad news is managing you rather than supplying you.

Minimums and the capital trap

Better pricing upstream comes with larger minimums, and a larger minimum of ground spice is a larger quantity going stale. The break that looks like a saving can be a write-off with a discount attached.

Buying whole changes this entirely, because whole spice keeps for years. It is the way to take advantage of volume pricing without buying a year of decline.

Keeping two

Single-sourcing a line you depend on means a crop failure, a price move or a lost account becomes your emergency. Two qualified suppliers on your best sellers is cheap insurance.

It also gives you a comparison. The second supplier is how you find out whether the first one's material has been drifting, which is otherwise almost impossible to see from inside.

References