Every importer who buys cumin eventually finds a website with a daily Unjha rate on it, converts it, and asks why our quote is higher. It is a fair question and the answer takes about five minutes.
The auction, briefly
Farmers and traders bring produce to the APMC yard. Lots are laid out in the open, buyers walk the rows, and bidding happens lot by lot rather than on a single market price. What gets published at the end of the day is usually a range, sometimes with a modal rate, drawn from what actually sold.
So the published number is a summary of many different transactions on material of many different qualities. A lot with 2% admixture and a lot that will sortex to 99.5% both sit inside that range. If you buy on the low end of the range, you are buying the low end of the quality.
The mandi rate is a description of yesterday. Your contract is a commitment about next month.
What sits between that rate and your price
Cleaning loss is the first item and the one buyers underestimate. Taking a lot from 97% to 99.5% removes weight. That removed weight was paid for at the mandi and cannot be sold at the same price, so it lands in your cost per kilo.
Then there is the APMC fee, mandi labour, transport to the processing unit, bagging, the bag itself, transport to the port, customs handling, documentation, inspection where the contract asks for it, and the exporter's margin. None of these are large individually. Together they are not small.
Arrivals matter more than the rate
The number worth watching is the daily arrival quantity, not the closing rate. A price that falls on heavy arrivals is a real price. A price that falls on light arrivals is usually a gap in buying interest and tends to correct within days.
This matters when you are deciding whether to fix now or wait. If you ask us where the market is going, you will get a view and a reason, not a forecast. Anyone who gives you a confident number three months out is guessing with your money.
Season shapes everything
Cumin arrives heavily from February. Psyllium follows in March. By late summer the fresh material is gone and what is left has been in storage, which shows up in colour and sometimes in moisture. Contracts written in the arrival window are cheaper and easier to fill than contracts written in October for the same specification.
If your production plan allows it, buy in season and take staggered shipments. We hold contracted stock and release it against a schedule, which usually beats paying storage through a third party.
What to ask a supplier
- Which grade does your quote correspond to, and what purity will be on the contract?
- Is the price before or after cleaning loss?
- What are today's arrivals, not just today's rate?
- How long does the quote hold?
A supplier who answers those four without hedging is worth a sample order. One who changes the subject probably has not bought the material yet.
Written from our own buying at the Unjha yard. Nothing in it is a price recommendation.
