Friday 16 July 2010

Indian Almond Leaves

It's amazing how many problems crop up with suppliers. We sell a lot of Indian Almond leaves. Some customers buy them 100-500 at a time. We keep a decent stock but were caught out recently by a series of big orders & had to order more.
Problem was - the monsoon period had just started. This is an extract from the supplier which brings home the problems experienced in getting these leaves at this time of year -

'We are really sorry for the delay..but we have had several really bad tropical storms hit our village ( start of the rainy season )...2 times we have been totally washed out...both times the heavy winds blew the covers off the leaves which we had on them to protect them from the wind and rain while we where drying them...each time the leaves where either blown away or where totally waterlogged that we had to bin them...we have been busy re-pressing and drying more and are just waiting for them to dry so we can brush them before shipping'..

Our policy is not to store big quantities of anything in favour of keeping stock fresh so some times of the year we at the mercy of mother nature.