Why We Chose California Garlic over Chinese Garlic

There are lots of serious debates (some might call them crazy) going on in our country today – Should we raise the debt ceiling? Tax the rich or let them keep their tax cuts? Why are we investing in the war(s) in Muslim countries when China is investing in technology and kicking our butts? This is all some ridiculously serious stuff…

Well we at SpicesInc.com have been having our own internal struggle for a while as it relates to China and in particular “Garlic”.

Now Garlic, and onions for that matter, create their own controversy among spice lovers. One camp says that these shouldn’t even be considered a spice as you should only use fresh. While the “other side” says “I can’t live without my garlic (or onion) powder, flakes and granules as these save me when I only need a little or I am pressed for time”.

Well we’ll waffle a bit on this one (hey maybe I should run for office) – we use fresh whenever and wherever we can but also use powder, granules and flakes for various dishes as well.

Our debate here has stemmed once again from some great customer feedback. As you know from past posts that to me talking to customers about spices is absolutely as good as it gets. Lately it seems that we’ve had more asking us about California grown garlic vs. garlic imported from China.

An interesting fact – for every man, women and child in the US we consume more than 4 lbs of garlic a year. That is a lot of garlic!

While many think that California is the garlic capital of the world most of the garlic that we consume actually comes from China. Back in the early 90’s China only accounted for about 2% of the total amount of garlic imported into the US. In 2009 it was up to around 50% and this year it is expected to increase another 30%.

It isn’t just that imports are up on garlic it is the systemic way that China has been flooding our garlic markets and driving down the price of garlic. Naturally this has been eliminating the amount of acres dedicated to growing garlic in California over the last 10 years. Last year California planted a little over 17,000 acres of garlic while in 2001 it was over 29,000 acres.

Well China bashing has certainly been in vogue for numerous import imbalances for a while now and maybe we should consider the demise of the California garlic farms as well.

But can you tell the difference in flavor? There have been several studies (scientific taste tests) that have continuously shown that California garlic tastes better than imported garlic, with higher ratings on the Brix (flavor) scale. California’s Central Valley region has an ideal warm Mediterranean type of climate with fertile, rich fields that provides ideal growing conditions for garlic.

We at SpicesInc.com are driven more by flavor than price and heck we import spices and dried herbs for around the globe. So we are not saying that you should only buy “American spices”. But we are also big believers and supporters of the local food movement and supporting our local farmers as much for better flavor as for supporting our local community. Sometimes that means paying a little bit more than if we got our fruits and vegetables from the local supermarket.

So I’ve made the decision that from now on we will buy our garlic that has only been grown, harvested, peeled and processed in California. We have already begun to turn over our inventory and you will see this identified as “California grown garlic” on the specific product pages for our Roasted Garlic Flakes, Garlic Powder and Organic Garlic Powder. We are also working with our suppliers to get the rest of our organic and non-organic garlic products moved over to California grown before the 4^th quarter begins.

I just felt that this was the right thing to do at this time.

Tagged as: California garlic, Chinese garlic, garlic