Business & Finance: Condiment Crises

Traditionally inseparable are salt and pepper.* All laymen recognize their union, their happy partnership. Few laymen realize their fundamental differences. Salt is a mineral; pepper a vegetable. Salt is a domestic product; all black pepper is imported.

Last week, specialists in the salt and pepper markets noted a more acute, immediate difference. The price of salt goes steadily down. (TIME, Sept. 17.) But the price of pepper is soaring, rocketlike, to record heights.

Pepper, a seed, is picked from a 40-foot vine, growing up the trunk of a tree, or around a low hut. There are two seasons, two sources. From Telok Belong in Dutch East India are harvested each July between 10.000 and 24,000 tons of pepper seeds known as Lampong. Alleppy and Tellicherry pepper comes from India and is harvested in December. Before they are used for seasoning, the seeds are ground, packed in tin boxes, and given a label. But whether Lampong, Alleppy or Tellicherry vines bore it, whether bought in an exclusive delicatessen shop or in the Great Atlantic & Pacific tea store, no matter what the box or price, all pepper tastes alike.

The 1927 crop of Lampong was far below normal. This year’s crop, not yet delivered, is only about 15,000 tons. Spice traders (pepper is the most important of their 108 spices), trading in spot pepper and futures, are short when the time of delivery arrives. They must get pepper at any price to fulfill contracts. They must draw from the surplus Alleppy and Tellicherry in India and in England, and pay dearly. Prices rise. From a normal price of 12¢-a pound, pepper quotations have risen to 43¢. Brokers prophesied last week that a high of 40¢ would be touched before the December crop of Alleppy and Tellicherry is shipped in February or March.

* Other inseparables: vinegar and oil, Damon and Pythias, warp and woof, odds and ends, pen and ink, man and wife, flotsam and jetsam, hook and crook, cup and saucer, might and main, sixes and sevens, beer and skittles, bread and butter, jot and tittle, flora and fauna, sweetness and light.