Saffron Seasonality: Planning Orders Around One Harvest a Year
Why timing matters more for saffron than for almost any other spice, and how buyers plan around it.
Saffron is harvested once, in autumn. Everything sold during the rest of the year comes from that harvest, held in storage.
The calendar
Flowering runs for a few weeks from late October. Drying, grading and testing follow immediately, and new-crop material becomes available from around December.
What that means for a buyer
Two things. First, crop year is a real specification item — ask for it. Second, requirements placed before the harvest can be planned against it, while requirements placed at short notice are filled from whatever is in storage.
Storage
Saffron keeps well when it is kept dry, cool and dark, in sealed packaging. Colour and aroma fade with light and moisture, not with time alone.
Planning
Buyers with predictable annual volumes usually indicate their requirement ahead of the harvest and call it off in shipments. Terms for that arrangement depend on quantity and destination and are agreed in writing.
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