Every turmeric supplier quotes a curcumin percentage. Almost none of them will tell you which batch it came from. That gap — between a number on a brochure and a number on a lab report tied to the goods in your container — is the whole subject of this guide.
The gap is bigger than most buyers expect
Commodity turmeric, the kind sold by the tonne into general food manufacturing, typically runs around 2–3% curcumin. The Lakadong lots we export test at 8–9%, against a guaranteed minimum of 8% on every lot. Those are our own figures, measured on our own batches — not a published property of the variety, and not something we would ask you to take on trust.
Lakadong is a turmeric grown in the Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya, in north-east India, and it is recognised for a naturally high curcumin content. But recognition is not a specification. What matters commercially is what your lot tests at, which is why we report the HPLC result for the specific batch you are buying rather than a range we would like you to assume.
What that difference does to your economics
If you are buying turmeric to eat, colour or season, the percentage barely matters. If you are extracting, it is close to the only thing that matters.
Curcumin is the compound an extractor is paying for. Everything else in the container is material you have to handle, ship, store and process in order to get at it. Roughly speaking, turmeric at three times the curcumin content yields around three times the active compound from the same tonnage — which changes your cost per gram of curcumin, your solvent volumes, your processing time and the number of containers you move to hit the same output.
This is why headline price per kilo is a poor way to compare turmeric for extraction. The meaningful comparison is cost per gram of curcumin delivered, and a cheaper container at 2–3% can easily lose to a dearer one at 8–9% on that basis. Run the arithmetic on your own yield before comparing quotes.
Curcumin and curcuminoids are not the same word
This is the single most common way turmeric specifications are misread, and occasionally the way they are massaged.
Curcumin is one compound. Curcuminoids are a family of three, of which curcumin is one. A figure for total curcuminoids will therefore always be higher than the figure for curcumin from the same sample. Two spec sheets can look like they are describing very different goods when they are describing the same material, or look comparable when they are not.
We state curcumin throughout, including the 8–9% above and the guaranteed minimum of 8%. If you are comparing us against another quote, check which of the two words that supplier is using before you conclude anything. If their sheet does not say, ask — a supplier who cannot answer that immediately is not measuring it themselves.
A percentage without a lot number is marketing
Any supplier can put a number in a PDF. The questions that make it mean something are narrow and easy to ask:
- —Which batch does this figure belong to, and is that the batch I am being offered?
- —Which laboratory produced it, and is that laboratory independent of the producer?
- —Which method was used? For curcumin the answer should be HPLC.
- —When was it tested — for this consignment, or at some earlier point?
A supplier who can answer all four in one reply is measuring their goods. One who sends the same certificate for every enquiry is forwarding a document, which is a different thing. We've written a longer walkthrough of exactly what to look at in how to read a Certificate of Analysis.
What we do about it
Every export lot is tested by an independent laboratory before it ships, and the Certificate of Analysis is issued against your lot number rather than against an older sample. If a batch misses the specification it does not ship, you hear that the same day, and you pay nothing for the batch we rejected. The quality process sets out the whole sequence.
Our minimum order is 100 kg, which is deliberately small enough that you can test a lot, run it through your own process, and check our number against your own before committing to a container. See the full Lakadong turmeric specification for the rest of the parameters.
Written by TrueOrigin Exports, a merchant exporter of Lakadong turmeric and aged black garlic. Every export lot is tested by an independent laboratory before it ships — see how that works.