vendor Alibaba and Aliexpress and my quest for spice containers

CraftyFox

CraftyFox

For months now I've been looking around locally and online for some nice, gift-worthy spice shakers and grinders. Somehow I always end up back in China, either at Aliexpress or Alibaba. It's not that US companies aren't carrying similar items, they just want 5-10x as much to be the middleman. 
So I'm just wondering if anyone here has used these platforms before and how I avoid a bad experience.. Or, alternately, a link to a spice container vendor I haven't found in America yet. Trying to keep the cost to under a buck for shakers and under 2 dollars for grinders, but material used can bring that up a bit. 
Thanks for your input! 
 
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What are you grinding?
 
How many people are getting these gift-quality grinders?
 
Are they people you know or is this marketing?
 
Have you considered what is inside "makes" the gift, so you can go with a lower cost grinder, perhaps, disposable but good looking?
 
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CraftyFox, I dont know about the grinder, I cant remember and am currently out of them.
 
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The Hot Pepper said:
What are you grinding?
 
How many people are getting these gift quality grinders?
 
Are they people you know or is this marketing?
 
Have you considered what is inside "makes" the gift, so you can go with a lower cost grinder, perhaps, disposable but good looking?
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This is all about the spice, for sure! And I'm definitely looking for a happy medium between cheap and tasteful. If you look at my two examples they are right along the lines of what I want. The one SalsaLady linked was also in the realm of what I'm after. While I'm always thinking of things from a market perspective, these were about gifts, as I would need to commercially process most of this to be able to bring it to market. 
Some of the important features I'm looking for are:
-At least some spice visibility.. The more the merrier.
-Resealable to prevent moisture and air damage.
-Under 3$ each.
-Non-Aluminum grinder.. (Am I being paranoid?)
-Preferably small chambered >4oz per spice. Ideally 1-2oz. 



 
 
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What spice do you need to grind? Peppers won't work. Peppercorns and rock salt will.
 
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Flaked dry peppers should work. I do a mix of chunky salt, dry peppers and herbs. Works pretty good in the glass one I linked.

The glass one has a snap plastic cap to seal it up and keep things fresh.
 
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So the issue with using just dried, crushed pepper is mainly in the big pieces getting stuck and not entering the action, right? I mean, I've bought crushed red pepper in grinders before and that was the only issue I had. I was hoping to be able to use one in a way that I could take whole or half pieced ones and fill it with that, for the look. 
I can run it all thru a nut mill first, but then I might as well just be looking for shakers. 

I usually use sea salt, kosher salt, or pickling salt to make my spiced salts.. They don't end up chunky(though I need to learn how to rock them up), but they remain pretty coarse if I don't use the slurry blender method. Usually I just take and lay a bed of salt in a glass baking dish and put my spices on top, bury them and bake on low heat until dry. 

One of the other "wild' spices I was talking about is Prickly Ash.. I use the dried ripened pods. They have a great citrus flavor with a special "bite" you won't soon forget. 
 
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The few grinders I've had that I reused were plastic jobs that came with other ingredients originally.. They only last a couple fills before the plastic grinder becomes worn down (becoming part of the spice, I assume). For the price, I really like those crystal ones SL posted.. Just need to email them and see what the action is made of. This is what I'm working with currently for personal use. I believe these were in a pack of two from $Tree. Pretty solid glass.. I don't care for the distortion effect it has on viewing the contents, or the fact that it isn't resealable. Humidity has ruined its share of spices for me. The dried peppers were finely nut milled a good half a dozen times, both ways. Shown with one and two light shakes, respectively. 
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A few of my salts.. Rampleaf, OysterMushroom, and Reaper Rampleaf.   
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I bought one like Boss posted, different brand, and was pissed when I couldn't get the top off of it! I bought it specifically so I could refill it with something different. Oh well....:shrug:
 
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DWB said:
Not exceptionally giftworthy but they only cost a dollar and come with 5.25 oz of bonus garlic salt ;)
 
https://www.dollargeneral.com/clover-valley-garlic-salt-5-25-oz.html
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I do have ones like this sitting around and don't care for them. It seems like very few companies like to make labels that are easy to remove. And they don't seem to be airtight in a lot of cases. They are nice for around the house though. I do recycle stuff whenever possible. These usually end up being spore shakers for wild mushroom vectoring. I end up going thru my barrel of these, supplement bottles, and stuff like that about twice a year, clearing out the junkier ones to make room. My tendency for hoarding junk like this is very dual-edged. 

I talked with the Myspicer(RMSC) people and they confirmed that, as I feared, the action on the one SalsaLady linked is plastic and not adjustable.. With about zero progress with either of the vendors on AliExpress, I'm really leaning towards them anyway. Nice price point, and with a lid. I'm probably still going to order one of each of the ones I posted, from AE, just to see how they are. 
I really feel like that pushbutton one could work with dried halved peppers.. 
 
 
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