Social Impact

A Letter from the Co-Founders

2023 was a year of growth for Burlap & Barrel and our partner smallholder farmers. We built brand-new supply chains, placed larger-than-ever spice orders, and expanded our spice selection. We hit quite a few milestones this year:

• We introduced our first single origin unrefined sugars (panela cane sugar and wood-fired maple sugar)
• We more than doubled our popular origin blends lineup (five spice, curry, tandoori, chai)
• We sourced more than 600,000 pounds of spices since we started our business, paying our partner farmers just shy of $3 million

All told, we built supply chains for 15 new spices in 2023. It can take us years to build new supply chains for new spices. For example, many of you were excited to try our new black garlic from Guatemala. Black garlic is a fermented garlic, typically found as whole bulbs of garlic or sticky, sweet black cloves. We wanted to offer something more versatile, so we began our search for black garlic powder, which turned out to be quite rare. We sampled black garlic from producers around the world, but when we met Luisa and her team in Guatemala, we loved the depth of flavor and aroma, as well as the fine texture of their black garlic powder. However, we found out that they were using imported garlic, so we convinced them to start working with the local garlic farmers in nearby Aguacatán to produce their first-ever batch of completely local black garlic. Not easy, but worth it! We’ve been working closely with the farmers in the area to grow this brand-new business just so we can keep it in stock.

All of this broadened our social impact by putting more money into the pockets of smallholder spice farmers, farmers who are committed to growing culturally significant and absolutely delicious spices primarily through organic and regenerative farming methods.

In 2023, we shipped out 24% more orders to home cooks, chefs, food makers and retailers in a time when many food companies saw their businesses shrink. We did this by reaching new customers in new places like regional and specialty grocery stores and by expanding our relationships with our partner farmers.

If you were to look at our year by the month, you’d see a big blip in April. That’s because something wild happened: we went on national TV. Our eight-minute debut on “Shark Tank,” with special guest Gwyneth Paltrow, was impactful, to say the least. We reached a brand new audience (3.8 million people tuned in, and 75,000 people visited our site that weekend), who learned about our growing social enterprise on a national stage. It took months of preparation by our entire team, our partner farmers, and everyone in between, but it was well worth it. This was our opportunity to introduce the idea of single origin spices to millions of people across America and to get them to fall in love with Burlap & Barrel, and that’s what we did. Thanks, Sharks!

Conscientiously growing our business by reaching new customers and sourcing new spices increases our social impact: the more spices we sell, the more spices we can buy from our partner farmers, improving their livelihoods, communities and families — these relationships are the core of our business, and our goal is to grow together. Our spices taste incredible because of our partner farmers' expertise and care, and we are always cooking up creative ways to grow our business alongside theirs.

Ori and Ethan
Burlap & Barrel Co-founders & Co-CEOS

Written by: Bayley Freeman, Operations & Communications Manager
Alyssa Melendez, Operations & Supply Chain Manager

Pemba Island, Zanzibar: Ori looks through a hand-rolled cinnamon quill while Ethan drinks a coconut after hiking through the mountains to visit partner clove and cinnamon farmers.

Expanding Our Sales Channels: 2022 vs. 2023

In 2023, we increased our sales in both wholesale and Amazon, and slightly decreased our website sales

Diversifying our Customer Base 2020 - 2023

Since 2020, we have worked hard to bring in more new customers, and our percentage of first-time customers increased in 2023 over 2022.

Impact at Origin

Farming Practices We Support in Our Partnership

We partner with farmers who are growing organically and regeneratively, with a focus on soil health, whenever possible. Our wild spices are harvested using techniques that protect and support the forests and fields where the spices grow.

Organic Farming

• Long-term farmer & consumer health
• Lower yield, higher quality

Regenerative Farming

• Environmental health & carbon sequestration
• Long-term farm productivity

Wild Harvesting

• Incentivizes natural habitat protection
• High-value varietals provide supplemental income

Processes that Add Value to Spices at Origin

We work with our partner farmers to dry, clean, grind and, in some cases, blend spices at origin. In return, we pay a higher price for the finished product than if we did these processes ourselves. For example, in Zanzibar, we pay 25% more for blends made at origin than for single spices, which supports local wages, equipment purchases, and our partners’ overall profitability.

Drying

Cleaning

Grinding

Blending

Every year, we regularly check in with our partner farmers through in-person farm visits and video calls. In 2023, we visited our partner farms in Mexico (twice), Barbados and Costa Rica. Sourcing trips are crucial to maintaining long-term relationships, growing our businesses together and making purchase commitments. The time we spend together with our partner farmers deepens our mutual understanding of the market on both sides. It’s also a lot of fun hanging out and learning about the many kinds of farms our spices come from!

We asked some of our newest partner farmers, folks we started working with in 2023, to talk about our relationship and how we work together. Here’s what they had to say:

Collaboration Blends & New Products 

Collaborating with people and companies we admire allows us to create incredible blends and spiced delicacies, allowing us to highlight the work other people and companies are doing. Working with collaborators helps us grow by introducing our spices to the collaborators’ audiences and our audience to our collaborators. It’s been going well: our collaboration products and blends are some of our fastest-selling items!

In 2023, we developed and launched 13 brand-new collaboration blends, made with chefs, writers, musicians and restaurateurs using our single origin spices. These creative, delicious blends help us reach new customers and give us an opportunity to showcase our spices in new, fun and unexpected ways.

We also introduced 6 new collaboration products, all made with our single origin spices. These included novel twists on familiar blends, spiced vinegars, tea, pasta, chocolate bars and sprinkles. Some of these collaborations were launched in our quarterly Spice Club subscription box; the growth of this subscription, to 3,500 people, allows us to support small food companies by introducing them to our growing audience. These collaborations also expand our customers’ appreciation of all the delicious ways our spices can be used, which means we sell more spices and can place larger orders with our partner farmers!

2023 By the Numbers 

Sourced 15 spices 

Including 4 new origin blends. In 2023, we sold 2x the number of jars of origin blends as in 2022.

Paid $732,912 to partner farmers

Sourced 137,805 pounds of spices

2023 Sourcing Map

2023 Impact at Home 

(L-R) Daniel Kuiken, Lisa Klein and Connor Carson at Rising AboveBakery in Nyack, New York, which works to develop independent,empowered bakers with special needs. Burlap & Barrel visited thebakery, donated spices and enjoyed a spice tasting with their team.

In 2022, we also made meaningful impacts at home.

We continued our donations to charities from sales of our Floyd Cardoz Legacy Masalas, made in partnership with Barkha Cardoz. Since launching the masalas in 2020, we’ve sold over 50,000 jars, which means we donated more than $50,000 on behalf of Floyd and Barkha Cardoz to charities they support, including Cookies for Kids Cancer, South Asian Council for Social Services, TYCIA Foundation, 360 Plus Foundation, Kolba, NJAAF and The Desai Foundation. We also made donations to God’s Love We Deliver, The Marigold Project and Last Prisoner Project through sales of our collaboration blends.

We continued our Guerrilla Ice Cream initiative, a pro-bono advising and consulting project for early-stage entrepreneurs of color and from other historically excluded backgrounds to help with their sourcing, supply chains, pricing, marketing and strategy. Ethan and Ori worked 2–3 sessions per week, mentoring and counseling new companies on launch strategy and positioning.

We honored each and every request to utilize our Pay What You Can program, which assists customers who need reduced pricing on our spices — no questions asked. One customer, Jessica in Oregon, wrote to us about her experience, saying, “Candidly, it's quite vulnerable to talk about financial stress. With my spouse out of work, life feels rather stressful. So I try to keep us all grounded with tasty homemade meals, and great spices definitely help with that! I love to cook French, Italian, Asian and American foods as well as being a passionate home baker. I'm really touched by how kind Burlap & Barrel was in helping me with this, and really impressed that B&B is so committed to making single origin spices accessible."

In 2023, we donated spices to many organizations and charities — over 6,100 jars and containers of spices, plus kitchen towels, techniques cookbooks, aprons and more. Some of the charities we donated to included:

Want to read our previous years' Impact Reports? 

• Read our 2022 Impact Report
• Read our 2021 Impact Report
• Read our 2020 Impact Report
• Read our 2019 Impact Report
• Read our 2018 Impact Report