How quinoa went from a niche product to mass-market food item

These days, you'll find quinoa in just about every supermarket, in takeaway salad bowls and in restaurants. But it wasn't that long ago that two pioneers had to fight to ensure that this pseudo-grain was even available here at all.

Back in 2007, Patric Fuhrimann and his partner Hoa Tran wanted to import quinoa to Switzerland for the first time. At the time, Patric and Hoa were living in Bolivia and working in the field of development cooperation. Through their work, the couple had formed close friendships with local family farmers and wanted to help these farmers gain access to the Swiss market.

They drew up a business plan on a napkin – which still hangs on the wall in their office today – and imported 20 tonnes of quinoa from Bolivia. That's a fullshipping container. At the time, they had no idea who was going to buy the quinoa as they didn't have a single customer yet.

As if all this wasn't challenging enough, Swiss customs officials presented the couple with a hefty bill: 30 francs per 100 kilograms. Patric and Hoa now had to pay 6,000 francs for the entire shipment. du

What is quinoa?

6'000 francs in customs duties for 20 tonnes! Why so much? At the time, the Swiss Federal Customs Administration didn't know what to make of quinoa and classified the pseudo-grain as a competitor to domestically grown wheat. In other words, the Customs Administration considered quinoa to be a threat to Swiss agriculture. And such a threat must of course be countered by imposing sanctions.

But quinoa isn't even a true cereal grain and certainly doesn't compete with wheat. Like amaranth, quinoa is a pseudocereal. Botanically, it is part of the foxtail family of plants, which includes spinach and beetroot. Quinoa is an excellent alternative to rice or couscous and makes a good addition to muesli or snack bars in its puffed form.

Before they even sold so much as a single kilo of the quinoa from their container, Patric and Hoa decided to take a stand against what they believed was an absurd import duty. "At the time, Switzerland was investing CHF 20 million a year in official development assistance in Bolivia. At the same time, taxing a product that can drive economic development without aid money just didn't make sense to us," says Patric.

Swiss Federal Council repeals customs duties

The Customs Administration rejected the request outright, explaining that changing these tariffs was no easy matter and that the Federal Council was the only body that could intervene. "So we immediately submitted an application to the Swiss Federal Council to lift the tariffs on quinoa," explains Patric, as if submitting an application like this were the most normal thing to do. Just two months later, the Federal Council officially announced that quinoa would no longer be subject to import duties.

Emboldened by their success, the couple spent their Saturdays travelling to organic food shops across the country, explaining to curious customers what quinoa is. They also held tastings and pitched their product to customers in the restaurant business. Today, Swipala supplies restaurants, organic food shops, food processing companies and gebana. In addition to quinoa, the company now also imports canihua, chia seeds and coffee from Bolivia.

Swipala, as Furhimann and Tran have named their company, has been working with the same partner in Bolivia right from the start. This partner handles all aspects of local processing.

Where does quinoa grow?

During all this time, little has changed in terms of how quinoa is grown. The family farmers live on high plateaus in the Andes at 3'500 to 4'000 metres above sea level. The soil is poor and dry. Almost nothing grows here. But the quinoa plant is perfectly adapted to these conditions.

"Growing quinoa still involves a lot of manual labour," Patric explains. Family farmers can now sow the seeds using tractors, but they still have to do a lot by hand, literally. Especially when it comes to harvesting. The biggest challenge is that quinoa plants don't ripen at the same time. So they have to keep walking through the field and selectively cut down the ripe plants."

Some families park a kind of combine harvester at the edge of their fields into which they throw the hand-cut plants. "But many of them still thresh the plants by hand," Patric adds.

The families all make their living exclusively from growing quinoa. Nothing else grows on their land. Some also grow potatoes or canihua for personal use, but they generate virtually all of their income from selling quinoa.

Quinoa boom improves income for family farmers

Nowadays, quinoa is known throughout the world and has become extremely popular. This has also changed people's perception of the pseudo-grain locally. "Twenty years ago, during our time in Bolivia, I didn't see a single restaurant that had quinoa on the menu," says Patric. Quinoa was considered peasant food. "That's no longer the case. The boom between 2013 and 2014 brought many young people back to the countryside because they recognised the potential in growing and selling it. A lot of money has also been invested in infrastructure."

But if you can't really grow anything but quinoa in these areas, what's left for the locals once the quinoa has been sold? Aren't we taking away their staple food? "I hear these questions all the time and often ask the local producers these same questions," says Patric. "They always look at me wide-eyed because they don't understand how anyone could come up with such an idea. If we were taking their food away, that would immediately be a reason for them to stop selling it."

In fact, the opposite is true. By selling quinoa, the families receive a good income, which allows them to buy other products they couldn't previously afford. "Because we buy quinoa directly from Bolivia without any intermediaries, we support the local family producers in a very practical way," explains Patric.

Order quinoa now

Sources:

Swiss Federal Council press release: Preferential tariffs on sugar imports - Exemption from duty for speciality cereals from the Andes https://www.admin.ch/gov/de/start/dokumentation/medienmitteilungen.msg-id-16137.html (accessed on 2 September 2024)

Database of the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security, Swiss-Impex, https://www.gate.ezv.admin.ch/swissimpex/index.xhtml

Wikipedia entry on quinoa, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinoa (accessed on 2 September 2024)