Covid demand spices up Libstar profits

“Be the spice of life”, the saying goes, and it seems that in 2020, courtesy of the Covid-19 hard lockdown, many people tried to do just that by adding a dash of flavour to their daily routines — and their palates — to combat the numbing fear of the dreaded virus and the boring isolation.

“We have witnessed a significant demand spike in most of our export markets. We’ve seen consumers wanting to fill their pantries, explore different kinds of at-home cooking and wanting to travel via their taste buds,” said Paul Jibson, chief executive of Cape Herb & Spice.

The Cape Town-based company is a subsidiary of Libstar group, an entity that produces and distributes products for the consumer-packaging industry. It was able to generate about R1.24-billion in export revenue, up from R1.22-billion in 2019. Cape Herb & Spice contributed 56% to the group’s overall expert revenue.

Onele Tshitiza, an economist at the National Agricultural Marketing Council, said spices are viewed as a niche market in South Africa and about 90% are imported.

Jibson told the Mail & Guardian that Cape Herb & Spice noticed an increase in consumer interest for global cuisine flavours over the past year and the “urge to create restaurant-quality dishes at home”.

The business had grown organically over a number of years, he said, but “2020 saw a spike due to Covid19-related pantry stocking”.

“Consumers were clearly more experimental in their cooking as we saw little-known spices such as sumac suddenly becoming popular, both as an ingredient in blends and as a stand-alone spice,” he said.

The company sources its spices globally, leveraging off the centuriesold spice trade.

According to The Spice Trader, a Canadian-based company, the ancient Egyptians were using spices for flavouring, in cosmetics and for embalming from 3500BC.

From there, the use of spices spread through the Middle East, the eastern Mediterranean and Europe. For almost 5000 years, Arab middlemen controlled the spice trade, until European explorers discovered a sea route to India and other spice-producing countries in the East.

Lesego Semenya, of Lesdachef Culinary Solutions, told the M&G that spices first were brought to the Western Cape by Indonesian slaves, who had been captured by the Dutch.

The spices included coriander, which is essential for the unique flavour of certain types of biltong and boerewors. In Kwazulu-natal, indentured Indians brought spices such as turmeric and cumin from the subcontinent.