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U.S. Is A Spicier Nation (Literally) Since 1970sby ANDREA HSU

July 30, 2010

This summer, as you season a pasta salador make a rub for your favorite meat,consider this: The U.S. is a far spicier nationthan it used to be.

The consumption of spices in the UnitedStates has grown almost three times as fastas the population over the past severaldecades. Much of that growth is attributed tothe changing demographics of America.

"We've had a very big influx of immigrantpopulations — from Mexico, from the FarEast, the Southeast Asia areas, from India,"

says Peter Furth, CEO of the consulting firm FFF Associates, whose focus is specialty foods,including spices.

Immigration, Furth says, has resulted in a broader array of restaurants. At the same time,food blogs and television cooking shows have spurred more home cooking. Together, thosetrends have resulted in a much more adventurous national palate.

Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show big gains in Americans' spiceconsumption since the 1970s, including 600 percent more chili pepper, 300 percent morecumin, and a whopping 1,600 percent more ginger.

McCormick, the world's largest spice and seasoning company, produces more than 1 billionbottles of spices and seasonings annually in its Hunt Valley, Md., plant, nicknamed"Spiceville." The company's net sales in 2009 topped $3 billion.

While McCormick's top sellers are familiaritems such as black pepper, cinnamon andItalian seasoning, the company is rolling outless well-known items such as roastedcoriander and roasted cumin. With the helpof some 40,000 consumer testers, thecompany has decided that there's a marketfor such spices.

Enlarge Alex Wong/Getty Images

New Spice: Piquant spices that were once hard to find inmost of the United States are now available in manygroceries and online.

7/30/10 8:42 AMU.S. Is A Spicier Nation (Literally) Since 1970s : NPR

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Marianne Gillette, McCormick's vicepresident of technical platforms andcompetencies, says U.S. consumers are farmore open to different flavors than they usedto be. She tests people for neophobia and

neophilia — fear of new foods and love of new foods.

"When we started some of our work with neophobes about five years ago," Gillette says,"things like pomegranate and wasabi were scary to them. And much less so now, becausethey're more mainstream."

That mainstreaming of foreign flavors has translated into sales for McCormick. Thecompany's chipotle chile pepper has seen a 70 percent increase in sales since its launch fiveyears ago. And sales of smoked paprika have jumped 300 percent since its launch threeyears ago.

"Before, people would not even know — how do you say chipotle?" says Celine Endler,marketing manager for McCormick's consumer products division.

McCormick is not the only spice company seeing growth. Penzeys Spices began as a mail-order business in 1986. It opened its first walk-in store in 1994 and now has 45 stores in 24states, with plans to open five more this year.

The growing interest in spices is welcome news for food writer Monica Bhide. Born in India,Bhide now lives just outside Washington, D.C., where she writes and teaches classes aboutspices and modern Indian cuisine.

Twenty years ago, Bhide says, "every time I went back home, I'd come back with a suitcasefull of spices, of lentils. Everything used to come from there."

Nowadays, Bhide can get everything she needs at an Indian store in suburban Virginia, orfrom Amazon.com, where a Tandoori chicken spice mix costs just a few dollars.

While Indian cooking uses a lot of roasted spices, such as the ones McCormick is selling,Bhide says she prefers to roast them herself, at home.

"There's nothing like having your kitchen fill up with an amazing aroma," she says. "Whenyou heat a pan and add a little bit of cumin, and it starts sizzling, the whole room feels sotoasty, smells amazing."

Enlarge McCormick & Company Inc.

Old Spice: Workers monitor production in a McCormickspice plant, circa 1945.