Sesame Seeds Export Data 2026: Buyers, Prices, HS 120740

In May 2026, South Korea went shopping for 20,000 tonnes of sesame and awarded 17,400 tonnes at $1,388–1,599 per tonne CFR Busan. Indian suppliers took 7,200 tonnes — the biggest slice of any origin, ahead of Pakistan's 5,700 and Burkina Faso's 3,000 (Mundus Agri). One tender, five origins, a $211 price spread. That is the sesame seeds export trade in miniature: concentrated buyers, tight price bands, and origin competition settled container by container. India shipped 244,300 tonnes worth $497.3 million in 2024, up from 224,700 tonnes the year before (Tridge).

The aggregate number is trivia. What pays is the layer underneath — which importer in Busan, Rotterdam or New Jersey received which grade, how often, from whom. Most til shippers never open that layer. The fastest-growing ones quote the buyer direct because they found the buyer in the shipment records first.

What does the latest sesame seeds export data show?

Three shifts: India back on top by value, African supply disrupted, and prices sliding. India's $497.3 million across 244.3 million kg in 2024 came on weaker unit prices — average wholesale rates fell from $1.38/kg in 2024 to about $1.03/kg in 2025 (Tridge). Buyers restocked hard on the way down.

Supply behind that trade is thinner than it looks. India's Ministry of Agriculture put the FY2023-24 crop at just 4.29 lakh tonnes (whitish seed: 3.22 lakh tonnes) per second advance estimates, roughly half the 8.02 lakh tonnes of FY2022-23 (NCDEX performance review). Trade houses expect 110,000–120,000 tonnes of white seed and 40,000–60,000 tonnes of black seed from the current crop, with black-seed acreage expanding in Gujarat on strong Chinese demand (Mundus Agri). Short crop, soft prices, record buyer churn — a strange market, and a good one to be holding the buyer list in.

Which countries buy the most Indian sesame seeds?

South Korea is India's top sesame buyer — 25.1 million kg worth $46.1 million in 2024 — followed by the United States, Russia, Vietnam and Iraq (Tridge). The 2024 lane ranking:

1. South Korea: 25.1M kg — $46.1 million
2. United States: 19.1M kg — $43.5 million
3. Russia: 16.3M kg — $40.0 million
4. Vietnam: 16.8M kg — $27.4 million
5. Iraq: 11.3M kg — $23.8 million

The 2023 WITS split adds the second tier: Indonesia ($25.5M), China ($23.5M), Saudi Arabia ($22.3M), Israel ($19.4M) and Greece ($16.4M) — Greece being Europe's tahini gate, and a useful wedge into EU grinders (WITS). Note the per-kg spread: Korea paid about $1.84/kg for Indian seed in 2024, Vietnam $1.63. Korea buys cleaned, graded, tender-spec seed; Vietnam buys volume for crushing and re-export. Same product line, two different businesses.

Korea pays the premium, Vietnam takes the tonnage, Iraq grew fastest. A sesame exporter who prices all three lanes identically is subsidising somebody.

Sesame seeds HS code: 120740

Sesamum seeds travel under six-digit HS 120740 worldwide. India's ITC-HS schedule splits the line into 12074010 for seed-quality sesamum and 12074090 for everything else — the code that carries almost all bulk natural white, brown and black shipments; the Ministry of Commerce uses both to compile export statistics (NCDEX, Tradologie).

Hulled sesame usually still moves under 120740, so a code-only query mixes $1.90 natural seed with $3.20 hulled kernels. When you pull sesame seeds export data, filter by unit price to separate the two — or you will benchmark your hulled quote against raw-seed averages and wonder why buyers keep saying yes too quickly. New to codes? Start with what an HS code is and how to use it.

How Sudan and Ethiopia redrew the sesame seeds export map

Sudan was the world's largest producer — 12.3 lakh tonnes against India's 7.9 lakh in 2022-23 per FAO (NCDEX/FAO) — and China's anchor supplier. War changed the arithmetic. Chinese imports of Sudanese sesame fell from 254,935 tonnes in 2018 to 26,618 tonnes by 2025, even as China's total intake grew to 1.46 million tonnes; Sudanese seed at $1,450/tonne simply lost to competitors near $950 (Sudan Horizon). Ethiopia, squeezed by its own conflict, saw FAO-counted exports drop from 1.86 to 1.08 lakh tonnes in a single year.

Those buyers did not stop buying. They re-shopped the same volumes across Nigeria, Tanzania, Mozambique, Brazil, Pakistan — and India. Every Chinese and Turkish importer that dropped a Sudanese supplier now sits in the shipment data with a fresh origin next to their name. The 2023 exporter table shows the reshuffle: India first at $489.3M, Nigeria moving 285.4 million kg, the largest volume of any origin (WITS).

The South Korea lane runs on tenders

Korea imports around 84,000 tonnes of sesame a year (FAO via NCDEX), a big share of it through state tenders, and India supplies about 25% of Korea's shipments — 17,613 tonnes in 2023, up 23% in 2024, at import prices around $2,150/tonne (Mundus Agri). The May 2026 award — 7,200 tonnes to India across four lots, shipment by end-July — set the season's reference price at $1,388–1,599/t CFR Busan (Mundus Agri).

Exporters who work this lane treat tender results as a market signal, not just a contract. After a large Korean award, cleaning and sortex capacity around Gujarat books out for weeks and spot FOB offers firm up; private-label buyers in the US and EU who waited too long pay the difference. Watching who won which lot — public information, traceable in shipment data — tells you whose capacity is full and whose isn't.

A Korean tender award is a price signal for every other lane. The exporters who read it early quote the US and EU before the FOB market catches up.

Where Indian sesame comes from, and 2026 FOB prices

West Bengal is India's largest producing state at 2.51 lakh tonnes (FY2022-23), ahead of Madhya Pradesh (1.46) and Gujarat (1.44), with about 75% of the crop sown in kharif (Ministry of Agriculture via NCDEX). The export business concentrates elsewhere: sesame seeds exporters in India cluster around Gujarat's processing belt, where machine-cleaned whitish seed is graded to the NCDEX 99x2x1 spec — 99% purity, 6% max moisture, 48% minimum oil — and shipped out of Mundra and Kandla (Tradologie). Current FOB bands:

The margin story lives in that table. Moving one container from FAQ natural to aqua-hulled adds roughly $1,000/tonne of price headroom against the $2,188/tonne global export average (Tradologie) — but only if you know which importers actually buy hulled. Japanese and Korean roasters do; Gulf tahini grinders mostly don't. The shipment records answer that question buyer by buyer.

How ShipScout turns sesame seeds export data into buyers

ShipScout is a global trade-intelligence platform — 11 billion-plus shipment records across 240+ countries, built as an affordable alternative to Panjiva and ImportGenius. It helps sesame exporters find and vet buyers with data-backed targeting, working from mirrored licensed trade data for India-linked trade. The sesame workflow:

• Search HS 120740. Pull live shipments and see which importers in Korea, the US or the EU are receiving sesame right now, and from which competing origin. Start in the company directory.
• Rank buyers by cadence, not size. A US importer clearing a container monthly beats a one-time 500-tonne tender win — sort by frequency and recency.
• Target the origin-switchers. Filter buyers whose supplier country changed since 2023 — the Sudan gap is still being re-sourced, and those accounts are actively comparing quotes. The full method is in finding buyers for export from India and the food & agro buyer guide.
• Vet before you ship. Check a buyer's real trade history before extending credit — here's how to verify a trade partner before paying.

One habit that converts: open your first email with the buyer's own pattern — "you received four containers of natural white from Nigeria between January and April." Reply rates change when an importer realises you can see their purchasing. The Sudan reshuffle handed Indian exporters a rare open window. The buyer list is already written — Start a free trial and search HS 120740 to read it.