Year Round Supply of Dillweed Needed
Answered by: Conrad Richter
Question from: No Name Given
Posted on: March 17, 2001

I am attempting to market my dill pickle recipe. The biggest hurdle I have to overcome is the fact that the tall dillweed is only available in July/August. I was hoping that you may have a source of this dillweed all year round.

You do not indicate where you are located. I will assume that you are located in the United States.

Fresh dillweed is available in most major markets in the United States year round. The USDA publishes fresh herb prices for many herbs including dillweed, which you can access from the Richters website at http://www.richters.com. Click on the "Resources for Growers" link.

The fresh dillweed sold at these terminals is not what you are looking for. You want the tall stalks with seed heads which are commonly added to pickles. I don’t know if there is enough demand for this form of fresh dill to warrant year round growing. The major dill pickle companies probably process their pickles seasonally when the pickles and the dillweed are available in summer. I don’t think that they attempt to process year round because the pickles and dill would have to be transported long distances.

If your business plan requires year round processing instead of seasonal processing during the summer, then you need to arrange with a grower to grow successive crops for you, probably in a greenhouse. That could be very expensive. And it might not work, because we are not sure if dill will flower and set seed during the off seasons. Flowering and seed set in many plants is controlled by the length of the night, and if that is true of dill, then the grower will have to extend the day with artificial light, which adds to the cost.

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