{"id":85846,"date":"2019-02-24T18:19:39","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T01:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=85846"},"modified":"2019-02-24T18:19:39","modified_gmt":"2019-02-25T01:19:39","slug":"why-peppercorns-are-being-smuggled-by-the-ton-from-vietnam-to-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/02\/24\/why-peppercorns-are-being-smuggled-by-the-ton-from-vietnam-to-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"Why peppercorns are being smuggled by the ton from Vietnam to Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Natasha Frost<\/a>\u00a0&\u00a0Dan Kopf<\/a>
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The dried, wrinkly black fruit of the pepper plant was once so valuable that peppercorns were used as a kind of currency. These days, the spice remains sought after despite its relative expense, featuring in virtually every meal on dining tables the world over. Demand for peppercorns is high, and rising: as any aspiring chef will tell you, there\u2019s simply no substitute for its pungent taste.<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s top exporter of peppercorns is Vietnam, where local farmers have shifted away from other formerly popular crops,\u00a0such as coffee<\/a>. The country\u2019s spice haul is sold around the world, but seldom in India, where government price-fixing sets local peppercorn prices way above the going rate in other markets.<\/p>\n

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Because of that, there\u2019s money to be made by selling Vietnamese peppercorns at Indian prices\u2014if you can find a way to bypass India\u2019s high tariffs and\u00a0minimum import prices<\/a>. Some rogue traders are now doing just that: they\u00a0reportedly\u00a0ship the peppercorns to Sri Lanka<\/a>, re-label them, and sell them on in India for a much higher profit than if they had exported them directly to the large, pepper-loving nation.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n