Spices Market Reports

Many US Red Chiles fields are currently in the fruiting stage and have developed multiple fruits. Despite a slightly cooler spring and a slow start to the season, the crops are catching up.

Vietnam has completed the pepper harvest as of April 2023. Due to early rains in Vietnam, the harvest season was finished one month ahead of the usual time.

The harvest activities are advancing in all the producing regions. Fresh chilli crops have begun to arrive in major market yards. Overall production is estimated to be higher this year compared to last year.

The 2023 crop season is in the planning stage. Growers are evaluating the pricing pressure from increasing input costs over the last year. The industry is working closely to strategically plant the acres needed to meet the market demand as the window is closing for planting preparation.

The planting for the CY23 crop is ~90% complete across California with some acreage still to be planted in the West side of Fresno County, Central California, as well as Tule Lake in Northern CA.

The Red Chile harvest in Southwest US (West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona) commenced during the second week of September. The Chile crop went through a very difficult growing season with cooler weather in the initial part, intermittent hailstorms, and severe rains during the month of August and September.

Harvesting in the desert region is almost finished and has now progressed to Kern and the Central Valley. Yields have caught up, despite delayed maturity in some of the early onion varieties.

Pepper harvest in Vietnam and Cambodia has been completed. There were early rains across all of the pepper-growing regions in Vietnam. This forced farmers to apply fertilizer early.

The chilli crop has been harvested. CY22 acreage has increased by 25-30% compared to last year. However, production has decreased due to significantly lower yield because of thrips infestation.

The ofi Crop team has managed to secure sufficient acreage and volume for 2022 grower contracts to meet the anticipated increase in demand for locally grown paprika and chile.

Planting has finished for the 2022 crop in the majority of the regions except for Tule Lake in northern California, Oregon, and Washington.

Vietnam harvest has started and is expected to peak in 2-3 weeks. This means that the flow of crops coming into the market will be good through the end of April.

The crop is currently at the flowering to ripening stage. Many areas are suffering from invasive thrips infestation (Thrips parvispinus), a new challenge for Chillis where pests attack the flower.