The Woolworths Food product which costs R207,000 per kilogram

Woolworths Food’s Saffron Filaments costs R207,475 per kilogram, making it the most expensive product by weight from the retailer.

Saffron is native to the Mediterranean, Asia Minor, and Iran, and Spain, France, and Italy became major cultivators of the spice.

Saffron filaments are crimson-red stigmas and styles harvested from the saffron crocus, used as a cooking spice and a dye for clothing. 

They are the most valuable part of the spice and are popular for their earthy-sweet aroma and subtle, bittersweet flavour.

Fresh stigmas retain a lot of moisture and shrink significantly when dried, meaning you need a large amount of raw plant material to yield a tiny dry weight.

The product’s high price is due to its harvesting. Only a small amount of each saffron flower is used, and all harvesting must be done by hand.

The flowers bloom for only a few weeks a year and must be harvested by hand before sunrise to protect the delicate threads.

It takes 75,000 flowers and over 200,000 individual filaments to produce just 500 grams of dried saffron.

This labour-intensive process makes Saffron Filaments expensive. At Woolworths, 400 milligrams of Saffron Filaments cost R82.99.

This translates into R207,475 per kilogram, significantly more than any other product at the food retailer.

“Saffron filaments add a semi-sweet, honey-like and floral taste to your dishes,” Woolworths Food states on its packaging.

“It is ideal for dishes like Spanish paella, bouillabaisse, saffron risotto and pilaf rice. You can also add it to a mild seafood curry or creamy mussel sauce.”

To put the R207,475-per-kilogram price into perspective, Woolworths’ free-range chilli beef biltong snapsticks cost R1,053 per kilogram.

The price above R1,000 per kilogram caused a stir online, although it is not out of sync with the rest of the market.