Sesame Seed Types: Making Sense of Sesame Seeds Varieties

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Trading in sesame seeds is a learning journey.

In the last few years we have learnt some lessons that we can share. Sesame seeds are used widely in baking and cooking, as well as a being a key raw ingredient to make some food products. Pricing between the different varieties differs substantially and are highly volatile over time. Whilst we sell product stacked 60 x 15 kg per pallet to customers, we take a keen interest in how it gets used

Types of Sesame Seeds

Below are photos of toasted black sesame and white hulled sesame sampled from our warehouse. We take standardised lot images of all our product. No generic google search/AI images need apply.

Black Sesame Seeds

Black sesame is a relatively small seller in Australia compared to white hulled sesame seed. They are not hulled, unlike white sesame seeds. But that is not why they are a different colour. They are distinctly different varieties. This means they have different quarantine requirements (they must be toasted or heat treated upon arrival) and have quite distinct uses.

Use of black sesame seed once toasted can add their nutty flavour to salads, stir-fries, and soups for crunch and taste. However, in Australia we see a growing use in home baking for Chinese and Japanese cuisine where they are ground into a paste for sweets like mochi and as a dessert topping, adding taste and creamy texture. Like most foods, certain traditional medicine practitioners believe they have specific health benefits.

White Sesame Seeds

White sesame seeds originate from Africa and India, they are among the oldest cultivated oilseed crops. They are key in Middle Eastern, Indian and Asian cuisines. Used in tahini, certain varieties of halva and obviously are used to make sesame oil. They have a relatively mild flavour.

They are predominately imported into Australia as a hulled product that requires biosecurity inspection, but not additional chemical or heat treatments to pass biosecurity.

Sesame Seed Quality

Seeds sourced from different regions can vary in quality and the cultivation methods impact flavour and nutrient levels. The best processors have tight control and relationships with their growers. Processing is initially a subject of cleaning. When it comes to cleaning — the key word is purity level and avoiding the unwanted toxins.

Purity

The best products in the market achieve 99.98% as a specification for purity, target NIL for any glass, plastic, stone, and metal. For those with less stringent requirements, there are products which target 99.5% and are typically used in baking and confectionary. These come at a lower price, but the view is that further processing during manufacturing will offset these impurities.

Health Risks

Salmonella and e. coli are risk factors for sesame seeds, and production and storage should be tightly controlled to avoid risk for human consumption. In addition, certain manufacturers have been known to sell products laced with arsenic, lead, and the pesticide residue ethylene oxide and artificially whitening chemical peroxide. The best manufacturers tightly control this. Avoiding risk comes with a cost — so be aware of unusually cheap product on the market.

Sesame Seed Prices

The price in 2025 of black sesame seeds has risen substantially compared with white hulled sesame seeds as demand outstrips supply, especially for key Asian markets. Meanwhile, although always volatile, the price of sesame seeds has been trending down over the last few months—which may be a temporary lull before some major new tenders, or a longer-term trend as they revert to pricing that is historically.

In Australia, the rough trend for hulled white sesame is shown below — drawn from our own price data. Pre-COVID the prices were even lower — but have never retraced all the way down. The weakening Australian dollar has also been a factor that cannot be discounted as the vast majority of our product consumed is imported.

The price of black sesame seeds has steadily risen over the last 4 years