Turkey
Healthy & Wealthy Nourishments
Quick Facts
SPICES
Based on the plant distribution around the world, our country has all three phytogeographic regions: Europe-Siberia, Mediterranean and Iran-Turan. This situation has enabled our country to have a rich vegetation and allowed 12 thousand plant species, approximately one-third of which are endemic, to grow here. While our country's ratio to the world's surface area is approximately 0.53 percent, 3.6 percent of the world's plant species grow in Turkey, which is an important indicator of our country's plant diversity. Red Pepper, Black Cumin, Thyme, Cumin, Mint, Sumac, Cinnamon and Turmeric stand out among the main spices according to the frequency of use.
Approximately 25 percent of the species in our country's spice flora grow in the Black Sea Region. However, most of the spices subject to export in terms of value and quantity are produced in the Aegean Region. The most important feature sought in foreign markets in spice plants originating from nature is production at a certain quality and standard. Especially for one of the most exported spice plants in terms of value, such as thyme, it is observed that despite the culturing and quality improvement efforts that have been going on for years, 20 percent of the production is still collected from the natural environment. This rate is seen to be around 80 percent for spice plants that are not economically important but are thought to be important for the pharmaceutical and food industry in the future.
