You may have been more focused on the rising cost of staple items like chicken, flour, and eggs in recent years, but another kitchen essential, spices, is also likely to see a big jump in price soon. The culprit? It’s what everybody who focuses on rising prices has been talking about for months: President Trump’s tariffs.
Many consumers and businesses have been suffering from tariff whiplash, with the President imposing or guaranteeing bigger tariffs on imports, only to reverse course days later. But amid all this, many people may have forgotten that a baseline tariff rate of 10% has stayed in place for several months and will seemingly be staying in place if the White House keeps to its word. There has already been concern about the rising cost of meat, or the tariffs affecting the cost of imported kitchen appliances, but one of the most common kitchen goods that comes from outside of the country is spices.
This was put into stark relief recently on an earnings call for the big name spice company McCormick, with the company stating that tariffs on spice imports could cost it up to $90 million per year. In response, the company is already planning to raise prices on some of its products by the end of the year. According to Marcos Gabriel, the CFO of McCormick, the company is trying to mitigate the effect of tariffs by shifting its sourcing for certain products, but many spices cannot be produced in the United States.
Tariffs will raise the price of many spices that can’t be grown in the United States
While companies like McCormick can shift some spice production to regions with more favorable tariff rates or to within the U.S., it’s almost impossible for companies to avoid them completely. McCormick itself imports items from more than 90 different countries. The American spice industry is not totally dependent on foreign imports, but about 60% of spices consumed in the country are imported, according to the USDA’s Economic Research Service. That represents over $420 million in spices (per the Observatory of Economic Complexity), with the biggest three sources of American spice imports being India, China, and Peru. In fact, Peru is the source for McCormick’s current “flavor of the year,” Aji Amarillo pepper.
While 40% of American spices are produced here, that 60% contains some of the most essential spices in your pantry. Vanilla, black pepper, mustard, and oregano are all major imports, and an increasing taste for international flavors is also making other imports like yuzu more popular.
And of course, China has been the biggest tariff target of the Trump administration — the country supplies many popular products. The current tariff rate on Chinese products has been temporarily lowered to 30% as the two nations negotiate, but that is still significantly higher than the baseline. Some of the most popular spices supplied by China? Garlic, ginger, and cinnamon. It’s impossible to predict just how much the cost of spices will rise, but it’s a good bet some of your favorite flavors will be getting more expensive soon.
