Frequently Asked Questions

We try to keep our shipping prices as low as possible. You can find our rates and read a complete explanation of our shipping policy here.

Absolutely! When ordering online, choose "Pick up" as your Delivery Method in the checkout and indicate the Inglewood Store, Edmonton Store, Calgary Farmers' Market South (Blackfoot Trail & Heritage Drive) or Calgary Farmers' Market West (Greenwich). We will send you an email when your order is filled and ready to be picked up.

Inglewood and Edmonton store pickups are usually ready in 2-4 days. Calgary Farmers' Market pickup orders need to be placed Monday by noon for pick up that week.

Please be aware that our warehouse which supplies each of our stores is located in Calgary, so occasionally our Edmonton store will be out-of-stock for an item in your online order. If this happens we will contact you to see if you'd like to remove, replace, or wait for the item in question.

Yes, we are currently able to ship to most addresses in the United States. We can also ship overseas to the following countries:

Europe: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland ,United Kingdom

Asia: Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan

Oceania: Australia, New Zealand

Don't forget that all our prices are in Canadian dollars, and that you will be responsible for any additional destination charges including duties, brokerage fees and taxes. Please note that free shipping offers are only valid for delivery to Canadian addresses.

We don’t like to be too specific about shipping times, since they are highly variable based on your location, the weather, the time of year, etc. We also sometimes experience significant shipping delays in some cases due to Canada Post labour relations or the COVID-19 pandemic.

Generally, however, shipping to cities and larger population centres takes 2–6 business days, shipping to rural locations takes 4–8 business days, and shipping to remote and northern locations takes up to 14 business days. Shipping to the U.S. can take anywhere from 4–14 days, depending on customs.

First of all, please make sure you have checked your mailbox, especially if you have a community parcel locker. Sometimes handling errors are made at Canada Post's sorting facilities, and a package in transit is accidentally scanned in as "delivered". If it doesn't arrive within a day or two, please let us know and we'll contact Canada Post to inquire.

We recommend that you do not contact Canada Post yourself. As a commercial client, we have quicker access to their support team, and we don't want you to have to wait on hold when we might be able to take care of this issue for you. Also, if a package is truly lost, we will need to be the ones to begin the investigation.

If you’d like to edit your order, please email orders@silkroadspices.ca, indicating the item(s) and variant that you'd like to add or change, and we'll adjust your order. If you have added something, you'll receive an email shortly afterward containing a link to a special check-out page where you can pay for the additional items.

Canada Post's standard shipping service for their business customers is identified as "Expedited Parcel". This language is not meant to imply express shipping or faster service.

We have four brick-and-mortar locations. Our flagship store is in Calgary at 1419 9th Ave. S.E. (in Inglewood). We also have locations at the Calgary Farmers' Market South and the Calgary Farmers' Market West, and a full shop in Edmonton (Whyte Ave). Visit the Contact Us page for hours and directions.

Yes – you can find the digital version online here (you will receive a code in your email which can be given to the recipient), or you can purchase physical ones in any of our locations. Whether digital code or physical card, they can be used interchangeably at all four of our locations and on the website.

Yes. We don’t use flour or any gluten products in any way. However, while we maintain a clean work environment and make reasonable efforts to keep gluten out of the area, we are not able to guarantee that our space is completely gluten-free.

No. Everything we sell is pure and natural. Our blends are hand-mixed from high-quality ingredients and contain no artificial colours or flavours, no MSG and no cheap fillers.

At this point, we do not accept large wholesale orders. We are a retailer and we keep small quantities in stock. We do, however, offer discounted per-pound pricing for restaurants, bakeries, caterers and other food service companies. Please contact us for details.

We would love for you to do that, but we do not currently have a program in place to offer third-party retail sale of our products. For now, we do not allow the resale or repackaging of our products in any way.

As much as we would love to source all our spices locally, Canada is just not a spice-growing region. The vast majority of spices still grow where they originally grew: in warm tropical climates. We use a series of wholesalers, brokers and distributors to import spices from their growing regions and to sift and clean them before they reach us. Our products come from every area of the world: Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, the United States, and yes, Canada.

We make all our blends ourselves. From curry powders to barbeque rubs to herb blends, we mix it all by hand from recipes that we have developed, tested and perfected. We are constantly working on new recipes, so check back often for new blends.

Sometimes a product will not show up properly on our website when it is out of stock. We are working on changes to fix this issue. There are also a few products that are available in our stores only.

If you are on our website and can't find something we normally sell, feel free to send us an email at info@silkroadspices.ca

We try to carry every spice and herb that our customers want, but there will always be a few things we don't have due to lack of availability or lack of demand. If there is something you are looking for, please let us know. We may be able to get it for you. Keep in mind that we only deal in culinary herbs and spices. We don't carry medicinal herbs or other grocery items.

We buy our spices often and grind many of them ourselves on a weekly basis, so you can be confident they are as fresh as possible when they get to you. However, all spices get their flavour from the volatile oils they contain, and this oil will dissipate over time, along with the flavour. As a general rule, whole spices will keep for up to two years. Herbs should be replaced after six months. Ground spices and spice blends will be good for about a year. If they are well-stored, they may keep slightly longer. We recommend buying often in smaller amounts and grinding spices fresh whenever you can.

In general, spices should be stored in air-tight containers in cool, dry places. Air, moisture and heat will all ruin your spices in a hurry. So try not to use jars that don't seal well or porous clay pots for your spices. And never store them on the back of the stove where they will be exposed to heat. Light will affect the colour of some spices, especially chile powders and paprika. Since colour is an important aspect of paprika, we sell ours in tins to keep the light out. Some spices are also more susceptible to heat than others. We recommend keeping your excess poppy seeds, sesame seeds, paprika and chile powders in the fridge to help preserve their oils.

Most of our spices are sold in glass jars and re-sealable zip-top bags. The regular glass jars are 125ml or ½ cup in volume. This is slightly larger than a typical supermarket spice jar. The weight they hold varies widely based on the density of the spices or herbs you have purchased. For example, 125ml of salt weighs far more than 125ml of herbs.

Our refill bags hold the same volume as the glass jars. We also offer one or two bulk sizes of most products.

Certain items come in a smaller or larger jar, tin, or specialty container. This will always be indicated on the product page. Our small jars are 62.5 ml or ¼ cup, and our large jars are 250 ml or 1 cup. Large tins are 125 ml or ½ cup and small tins are 62.5 ml or ¼ cup.

Empty jars, including extra large 500 ml (2 cup) glass jars as well as tins are available in the Accessories section of our website.