Bay Leaves and What the Tariffs Can Teach Us About Climate Change

by Claire Cheney                                                             

The world is getting hotter, literally and figuratively. The year kicked off with a roller coaster of tariffs disproportionately affecting small U.S. import businesses. 

In the ten years of running Curio, I've maintained a sense of fierce optimism for the business. Is it enough? Probably not. During the Covid Pandemic, when we pivoted overnight from being a brick-and-mortar business to an e-commerce business, I learned that taking care of my team was the only way we could take care of our customers. Would Curio collapse during the pandemic, like so many other businesses, unable to pivot, to invest in different systems, a different workforce?

Thankfully, we did not collapse.

We struggled, overwhelmed at times, with figuring out how to create a fulfillment center in our cramped basement, or support immunocompromised team members who needed to keep their jobs. I still feel myself reliving those days, as I’m sure many of you do. Our stories are different, but we shared this global challenge together.

In an interview recently with the Boston Globe, the reporter asked me if I thought the tariffs might put us out of business.

Too optimistic to imagine that a tyrannical administration could be the death-knell of Curio, I told him no, it wouldn’t. But I'm also not 100% sure about that. Our sales are down. We’re low on supplies. and I keep wondering when it will be over. Will August 1st bring a new wave of tariffs, including 30% on the EU? While I am riding the waves of this news, I remember our farmers, all over the world, that live this reality every day with the impacts of climate change.

Though I disagree with using punitive tariffs as a negotiation strategy, I am using the opportunity to deepen my empathy with our farmers, who must ride the waves of weather uncertainty with increasing severity every year. The climate crisis isn’t a vague concept in the news, it’s our farmers lived reality.



Have you tried Ferla Spice? Our supplier for those spices in Sicily is a small, family-run operation. We also source bay leaves from them, a popular spice that sells year-round. The heat this year in Sicily has been unusual, resulting in drought conditions and thus poor growth of the bay laurel trees. The unusual weather has been so bad recently that much of the country is at risk of desertification (where normal fertile land turns into desert). Given how many unique products the island produces, from spices to pistachios, citrus and wine, this is going to have a ripple effect across the food system. To learn more, check out this article from last year in The Guardian.

Small farmers suffer the most, trying to get by without reserves of cash or resources (sound familiar, small business owners?). We've been sourcing from the woman-led farm since 2018 and want to continue to celebrate their exquisite products. We can’t give up on them. A business like ours (and theirs) relies on long-lasting relationships. We can’t simply order anonymous bay leaves online and pass them off to you. We know you support us because you can trust our sourcing ethics. Katia, our sourcing partner in Sicily, checking the wild fennel plants.

What can you expect in the meantime? We want your food to still taste good, to represent the joy and richness that you share with your family, when the rest of our world feels chaotic. So think like a small farmer. Use what you have, educate yourself, stay optimistic. 

In a very practical sense - if you’re out of bay leaves, don’t rush to replace them with a poor substitute online or at the grocery store. Learn something new. Bay leaves carry several aromatic compounds that can be found in other spices. The best place to find a similar combination is actually in allspice. So if you're making a stock, use one or two berries in place of a bay leaf. 

When you shop with us, you’re doing more than buying spices. You’re helping rewrite the rules of global trade—building a food system that’s not only resilient but also delicious. You’re part of a community that values transparency over shortcuts and care over convenience. 

Let’s keep cooking like it matters. Because it does.