Spice Trade
Dry Chilies: Exports and Production
Alex Manioudakis
I have always had a fascination with chilies. They're particulary unique as vegetables go; their potency is tangible, measurable, and, now, tunable
(yes we can breed them to contain insane scoville levels).
Dried chilies are particularly pungent and can be added to a variety of different foods, including soups, to 'up' their flavor and add a kick.
They are also really easy to transport as they do not spoil and are loved by people across the world.
Looking at the export volumes of dried chilies from different countries around the world, we can immediately see that the market is dominated by both China and India.
While these countries are known for their spicy foods, the sheer volume of exports surprised me. Together, they make up over 80% of total dried chili exports around the globe.
Other unsurprising appearances are Mexico, Myanmar, and Tunisia (known for its Harissa).
Feel free to hover your mouse over the boxes below for more info.
So where are dried chilies amongst other spices being traded around the world? Are they popular? Are they a recent fad?
Not at all! Here we can see how chilies have consistently been among the most exported spices since the early 90s.
Starting in 1993, about 200,000 metric tons of dried chilies were exported each year. Today, that number has reached over 1 million metric tons per year. That's a lot of chilies!
One can also see how ginger has closely followed the same trends as our dried chilies. This is not necessarily a coincidence.
Indeed, since the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, we have seen a significant drop in tariffs between nations on spices. This is truly the era of globalization.
Moreover, we can see exacly how the ascension of India and soon later China correlates with the rise of all spice exports, but especially ginger and dried chilies.
Source: Kaggle sourced from FAOSTAT
Beyond exports, the field of major dried chili PRODUCERS looks very different.
Indeed we see some of the familiar names like India and China, but there are other countries that are not major exporters.
West African countries Ghana, Benin, and Côte d'Ivoire are known for their chilies like the bird's eye pepper, the bonnet, or the well known habeneros.
The non-major exporters are often high-consumers of chilies themselves, and either don't have the export capacity, rely heavily on subsistence farming, or simply have robust internal dried chili markets.
The scale denoting production capacity below is logarithmic, highlighting the sheer might of India's production as it towers over all other countries.
Source: Kaggle sourced from FAOSTAT