A new season star anise – Bad production – New historical high price
Since December 2020, farmers in Langson province already told about a bad season of Star Anise for the coming months. Most fresh star anise was dead and felt down. At that time, price for this illicium verum flower was around $9000 – $9500/mt.
(Raw dried star anise in 2021 from Langson, Vietnam)
A few weeks later, Mr. Cu Van Luy from Binh Gia village said: “I have never seen the situation like this before. The season is too bad. I can collect a few dozen kgs of fresh flower in a day. And the Chinese business men buy all of production. They buy whatever star anise, fresh flower, dried flower, broken flower. Now the price of fresh star anise Tu Quy season is VND 50,000 per kg! And I must use 6kgs of fresh star anise to have 1kg of dry ones. Even at this high price, we can not cover our lifes because the quantity of this crop is too less!”
For the decades, the Chinese people use to buy agriculture products from Vietnam. Whenever they buy, they buy a lot and push the price up. After that, they will sell to Vietnam again. This circle is being applied for black pepper, star anise, fresh fruits/ vegetables.
(Price of Superior Star Anise in first weeks of January 2021 reached to $14.2 per kg)
At the moment, January 18th 2021, the price of star anise is $10.2/kg for normal quality. And price for premium star anise is $14.2 per kg. The price is now 2 times higher than it was in January 2020.
Would the price coming down? It is hardly to predict. The total production of star anise in 2021 would be much lesser than it was in 2020. Moreover, the Chinese people keeps playing with prices. Hence, the prices might not have possibility coming down until new autumn season arrive in September this year.
(Raw Star Anise fully dried packed in PP bags)
Thus, if you have urgent demand for star anise, please consider the broken chips as a replacement. The price of broken flower is about $2000/mt cheaper than the whole one.