Ginger Popcorn, Exports Halted & Ginger Ale Recall

We are a little late with this post as we are working on a major development at All Things Ginger. We are not going to tell you what it is yet but when it is ready we think you will be impressed.

The Dieline, a website dedicated to package design, reports that Canada Dry Green Tea Ginger Ale is the most successful new product launch to date for Dr Pepper Snapple Group. I've never tried it but I am quite taken with the look of the can.

A gingerbread-flavoured popcorn has been launched ready for Easter by the UK gourmet popcorn maker Joe & Seph’s. Popcorn sales in the UK have increased rapidly over the last three years with the market in 2011 worth £53 million according to Mintel. (Source: The Food & Drink Innovation Network).

There was a blunt message last week in The Produce News - "Chinese ginger exports have ground to a halt". What normally happens in China is that ginger is harvested in November and placed in sand to cure and dry in caves until January. But this winter China is experiencing one of its coldest winters in four decades and the ginger is not curing. The price of Chinese ginger has already risen as a consequence and is expected to continue rising.

The ginger revival in Sierra Leone has been boosted by the news that the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act has certified ginger for export to the USA and Europe. Sierra Leone has been exporting ginger on a small scale to the Netherlands for a number of years. This has been quite an achievement as the Sierra Leone ginger industry was all but wiped out during the civil war from 1991-2002. (Source: Awoko).

Here is some important news if you live in New Zealand and you have bought a Schweppes Dry Ginger Ale with a best-before date between January 10th and January 30th, 2014. It has got to go back. Coca-Cola is recalling this drink along with four other Schweppes drinks because of a possible problem with the glass bottle. (Source: 3news).

Greene King, the pub retailer and brewer, has revealed its 2013 guest ales calendar. And guess what? The brewer has a ginger offering. Twisted Wheel, a light ale with a twist of ginger, will be available from April to June. According to The Drinks Business, this beer is named after the famous Manchester northern soul club which had previously been the UK's first Mod club.

The Maine Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association has published an interesting article about growing ginger in the state. We have mentioned growing ginger in Maine before in this post. Farmers in the state appear to concentrate on producing immature (or baby) ginger which is popular both cooked and raw in salads.

The Fiji Times reported that over the last ten years the country's production of ginger has been 75% immature (baby, green) and 25% mature. With the country set to start exporting mature ginger to Australia, the Ministry of Agriculture needs farmers to convert their immature ginger crops to mature ginger.

In our last post we reported that Nepal has now become the third largest producer of ginger in the world. The Himalayan has now stated that Nepal is third in terms of the total export volume of ginger but eighth in terms of value. In other words, Nepal is not getting enough for its ginger compared to other countries. The article also mentions that ginger production in Nepal is growing a faster rate than in the major competitor countries of India, China and Indonesia. The Kathmandu University School of Management has found that the best way to increase export earnings is to export value-export value-added ginger. And the best form of value-added ginger is ginger powder which is seeing increasing demand around the world.

The price of Nigerian dried ginger appears to be stable even though 70% of the current harvest has been sold. Incidentally, Nigeria used to be the third largest exporter of ginger until Nepal overtook it.

The Radio Taiwan blog published a post on the benefits of ginger in winter. What took my eye was the fact that ginger is harvested in Taiwan all year.

Business Planning, Rising From The Ashes And Potassium Fertilizer

Congratulations to the University of the West Indies (UWI) who have won a business planning competition with its development of a fictitious ginger factory. Last weekend more than 300 students across 21 teams from black colleges and universities gathered in Atlanta, USA, to participate in the Opportunity Funding Cooperative Venture Challenge, an entrepreneurship competition which has been running for the last ten years. Four students from the Mona School of Business at UWI won with a project to revitalise the Jamaican ginger industry. It will be interesting to see whether this project translates into real life.

Things are looking up for Sierra Leone. Its ginger industry was destroyed by the 11-year civil war and has taken the best part of a decade to recover with the help of the United Nations. Rising populations and incomes has created a high demand for ginger both locally and across West Africa. Sierra Leone has preferential access across this wider region through its membership of ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States). The country also has duty-free access to both the EU and the US. This is a story that I shall return to in the near future.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) has reported that China's agricultural sector will face rising costs in 2011. A major contributor to the increased costs will be global fertilizer prices. This will mean higher costs for ginger which is grown with potassium fertilizer to boost the size, and hence the yield, of the rhizomes. Although China does produce its own potassium fertilizer, the majority of its requirements must be met by imports. Global prices of potash (the principal source of potassium), along with other agricultural nutrients, have been rising to satisfy demand from a rapidly increasing world population and to compensate for poor harvests caused by inappropriate weather conditions. The increasing cost will also affect other ginger growing countries such as India which has to import all of its potassium. So, consumers and manufacturers be warned. Your ginger is going to cost more.