In this guide
Quick answer
Somebody rings the shop in October, hears a figure for kaju, and says the rate was lower when they bought in March. They are right. The rate was lower. Nothing went wrong in between, and nobody is being charged extra for the festival. Four things move a dry fruit rate, and every one of them moves on a calendar.
Why does the same kaju cost more in October than in March?
Because the shop is buying it at a different price. Cashew comes off the tree between February and May. A trader buying in March is buying from a crop that is being graded and bagged that week, and the market is full of it. A trader buying in October is buying from stock that has been held, sorted and stored for six months, and the whole country is asking for it at once. The gap between those two moments is not margin. It is what the kernel cost.
Today, at our counter, kaju runs at today's shop rate across the grades we keep, pack by pack on the kaju price page. That figure is read off the shop as this page loads, so it is right the day you read it and not the day it was typed.
The four things that actually move a rate
Everything else people blame — the season, the wedding, the fuel price — reduces to one of these.
| What moves | Which items feel it most | When |
|---|---|---|
| The crop itself | Kaju, anjeer, akhrot, makhana | Harvest month, then a slow climb |
| Import rate and duty | Badam, pista, medjool khajur, walnut kernels | Any month, and without warning |
| Festival and wedding demand | Kaju, badam, anjeer, gift grades | Six weeks before the date |
| Grade and count | Every whole nut | Not a season at all, a choice |
Which of the four costs you the most money?
Grade, and it is not close. The other three move a rate by a tenth or so across a year. Grade moves it much further than that inside a single day, at one counter, on one shelf. Large whole kernels of anything cost far more per kilo than smaller even kernels of the same crop, same field, same quality. Nothing is wrong with the smaller ones. They are simply not the ones a gift box wants.
So the useful question is rarely when to buy. It is which grade the thing is for. A box being handed to a client wants the large whole grade and will cost what that costs. A jar on your own kitchen shelf, for milk and poha and morning almonds, does not, and buying the gift grade for it is the most common way people overspend on dry fruit.
Badam is the clearest case. The almond in a gift box and the almond you soak overnight are graded apart, and today they run at today's shop rate between them at our counter, which the badam price page sets out grade by grade.
When is the cheapest month to buy?
For most things, roughly two months after that crop is harvested, which lands somewhere between May and August depending on the item. Anjeer is the one people get wrong most often: the Afghan and Indian crops arrive at different times, the rate at our counter today is at today's shop rate on the anjeer price page, and it is normally at its quietest well before the wedding season starts asking for trays.
That said, buying nine months of dry fruit in the cheap month is usually a false economy. Nuts go stale, oil turns, and a kilo of rancid akhrot saved nothing. The three habits that genuinely save money are simpler:
- Buy the grade the job needs, not the best grade on the shelf.
- Buy gift quantities six weeks before the festival, not in the last ten days, when the grade you wanted has already gone.
- Buy a month at a time in sealed packs, and keep the rest of your money.
Does a higher rate mean better dry fruit?
Within one grade of one item, no. Two shops selling the same count of the same crop are selling the same thing, and the cheaper one is cheaper. Across grades, yes, and that is the whole point of a grade. The trouble is that most shops quote a rate without naming the grade, so the reader cannot tell which comparison they are making.
That is why every rate on this site sits beside the pack it belongs to and the count it was graded at. Our orders start at ₹1,000 and every order ships free, and each product page shows what that pack works out to per kilo, so nothing has to be taken on trust. You can see what we keep and what it costs in one place.
Questions people ask
How often do your rates change?
Whenever the buying rate changes, which in a quiet month is not at all and in the six weeks before a festival can be twice. The figures on this site are read from the shop each time a page loads, so there is no stale price list to catch you out.
Should I buy dry fruit before Diwali or after?
Before, but early. The rate climbs about six weeks out, and the large gift grades run out before the rate even peaks. Buying after the festival is cheaper and gets you what is left.
Why is one shop half the price of another for the same item?
Almost always a different grade, a smaller count, or a pack that is not the weight you assumed. Ask for the grade and the net weight before comparing two figures.
Do rates differ by city?
The buying rate does not, but freight, shop rent and local demand do. We ship one rate across India, so the figure you see is the figure wherever you are.
We deliver across India See 87 city pages
Written at our counter, where these questions get asked every week.
