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Mohammed Salehi, founder of Heray Spice, based in Chicago, has been selling saffron in the US since 2017. He also recently introduced Afghan tea and cumin to his buyers. Salehi was an interpreter for the US military in Afghanistan, allowing him to arrive in the US on a special visa in 2014.
To understand saffron is to understand the immense work that goes into this product. Saffron begins with the Crocus sativus flower, a small purple flower that blooms in the autumn as opposed to other flowering herbs and spices that bloom in the spring.
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Mohammad Salehi was a farmer once, and a military linguist before he became the CEO of Heray Spice, an organic saffron company in Chicago encouraging Afghan farmers to raise saffron instead of opium poppies. Afghanistan is the third-largest producer of saffron and has some of the best quality in the world.
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Heray Spice, The Saffron Specialistby Sophia F. Gottfried Jan 28, 2021, 11:47am EST Illustration by Joules GarciaSaffron is one of the world’s most famous, and famously expensive, spices. But Mohammad Salehi has found, beyond that, Americans don’t know all that much about what he calls the “queen of spices.” When he first tried selling the delicate crimson threads from his family’s farm in Afghanistan to grocery stores, they didn’t bite.MORE ON EATER
Heray Spice imports saffron from a cooperative of 25 farming families from two villages in Herat Province. Salehi knows them all personally, and his company pays on average $400-$500 more per kilo than local traders. He also invests a portion of Heray’s profits in local education. “When I was a boy, every year my family would put half of the income from their saffron crop towards my education,” says Salehi. “I want to help the children of farmers who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford to go to school.”
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Mohammad Salehi sells saffron to more than 100 professional chefs and an increasing number of home cooks, but he’s hesitant to call Heray Spice — the company he founded in Chicago in 2017 — a business. To be sure, Heray is a business, and a fast-growing one at that, but Salehi’s vision reaches beyond turning a profit or introducing Americans to some of the best saffron in the world.
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