Spices are wonderful! however they may be harvested by children who are being kept out of school, child slaves. We started looking at cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, mixed spices and ginger to get a feel of where the spices on our main supermarket shelves are coming from. With the occasional exception none of the brands on our supermarket shelves state what country the spices come from! The labels just say “Packed in New Zealand from imported ingredients.
With thanks to the World Integrated Trade Solution (software that allows users to access and retrieve information on trade) - we can see where Aotearoa/New Zealand imports goods from.In 2024 we imported over 50% of our baking spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves) from India. This is sobering because the Centre for Child rights and Business states there is an extremely high risk of child labour in the Indian spice industry. Ginger is a slightly different as we imported more from Thailand and China than India but all three countries are high risk for forced labour generally plus Woolworths ground ginger is imported from India. Some spices are grown in one country then processed in another eg Nutmeg - Indonesia then processed in Vietnam or China.
All in all it is a dire picture as we can’t imagine baking with no spices! but there is light at the end of the tunnel! Trade Aid has a range of spices it is importing and this includes all the main spices for baking. Like all Trade Aid products these goods are accredited by the WFTO with rigorous systems that assure us there was no child labour and no forced labour used. Personal communication in September 2025 with Trade Aid also confirmed that the range is increasing.They will be importing more products and repackaging a wider range into small home use friendly packets. Their spices are unfortunately not available in our main supermarkets. They are available online and this offer on their Find a stockist page is worth consideration “Stock varies from store to store so if you’re looking for a specific product please get in touch with us directly”