From freebie to luxury: Coriander prices spike after rain disrupts Nashik supply chain

New Delhi: The humble dhaniya patti has gone from freebie to luxury garnish. Once casually thrown into the vegetable bag by neighbourhood sabziwalas, fresh coriander has turned unexpectedly expensive after heavy rains disrupted supplies from key producing regions.

Fresh coriander prices at Delhi's Azadpur mandi surged to ₹175 per kg, while retail prices climbed to ₹220-230 a kg earlier this week, traders said. Wholesale prices usually hover around ₹25 a kg at this time of the year, according to Mukesh Kumar, a vegetable trader at Azadpur mandi. Traders said prices briefly touched ₹200 a kg at the wholesale market before falling to around ₹110 later.

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The spike followed heavy rainfall in and around Nashik, Maharashtra, one of the major suppliers of green coriander to northern markets. Flooding in late July damaged fields and disrupted transport, squeezing the availability of produce capable of surviving the long journey to Delhi.

"There was a shortage of good-quality green coriander about a month ago, when local prices in Nashik had touched ₹130/kg. Supplies from other places like Bengaluru and Latur had declined due to delayed rainfall," said Krushna Borade, a Nashik-based vegetable trader and exporter.

The latest spell of excess rain damaged coriander crops in several areas, making good-quality produce harder to source, particularly varieties that can withstand transportation to distant markets such as Delhi, Borade said.

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Karnataka has stepped in to partly fill the supply gap, but arrivals have been limited and the quality has been relatively lower, Kumar said.

Traders said rain-related transport disruptions also contributed to sharp price movements on some days this week. Coriander from farms around Nashik is typically moved to cold-storage facilities in Indore before being transported onwards to Delhi, making the supply chain vulnerable to weather-related disruptions. "It is very difficult to predict prices of leafy greens during the rainy season as they can jump multi-fold within a day of delayed arrival," said Aniket Kapadi, a coriander trader from Nashik.