Pink Peppercorns Story Spiel

Pink Peppercorns, (in fact both species confused and construed as pink peppercorns) find their original sources in the Amazon and deep jungles of South America, in Peru and Brazil respectively. As many new world plants, they migrated in the same way vanilla and bananas and sweet potatoes did to plantations and colonies following the transoceanic trade routes of ancient ships.After being used in France first following the Great War and World War II, they started to appear as overpriced fancy gimmicks in California and then New York City and came in and out of cuisine trends, until they caused a bit of a stir and scare in an allergy and poison panic in the USA (which turned out to be a mistake, construing the plant with poison ivy when nut allergies were at play the same as they would be to cashew nuts.) This didn’t abate until the FDA cleared the air and let the spice reign supreme on fruity tangy notes once more. From there, they became a steakhouse staple or a fancy melange with 3 other peppercorns in shaker packs.

Pink peppercorns best price, as in its cheapest price, as a commodity, tracks the supply chain and thus comes direct from the farms and growers like us. We produce it for less than $0.20 cents a kilogram since 2020, and so we are generally able to ride out any market or seasonal cycles and always profit through the years and keep our operations growing and healthy.

The cheapest source for pink peppercorns tends in the past decades to be Myanmar, South Africa, and Brazil and the most expensive tends to be at the current time of harvest Madagascar and Afghanistan since the 2020’s..

We started growing the spice after World War II and moved farms twice before setting up coops and grow-ops in 6 nations (working on 2 more.) With steam cleaning and sterilization standards and strict inspections and quality control, we have managed to become what we believe is the world’s best and most informed source for pink peppercorns, generally exporting only grade AA and never the other so-called “grades” that are invented by inferior traders and tricksters who buy the spice to arbitrage. Madagascar traders for example sell pink peppercorns for $2 to $6 to even $15 per kg that are elaborately “graded” to mask their provenance as the reject detritus of fine foods industry and bizarre export taxes and infrastructure problems. Brazil invented 4 different “associations” to “fair trade” and “quality control” pink peppercorns to attempt to triple their price. Angola traders intake payments in a different currency exchange rate than the dollar parity, to save 40% on their intake but pay farmers at the local official kwanza to dollar rates.

After the world almost completely opened to trade, and free trade agreements and AGOA loosened up the movements of agricultural goods that weren’t grown in the USA and Europe, the surge of spices around the world really took off and may have even outshined the original spice trade on ancient gallions by now.

Pink peppercorns we’ve grown and sold online and in person have found there way onto shelves of at least 55 known countries, and demand worldwide looks to be growing yearly!

To calibrate and sort pink peppercorns, we use a brush to avoid breaking “la baie rose” which are very fragile. We remove seeds that are already broken, and any changed colors from natural environment and atmospheric factors and white worms. Then we sterilize so as to keep all intact at grade 1 distinct from grade 2. Grades 1 and 2 can be exported. Everything is done by hand with attention. Then we put in the bag, and in a box.