Byadgi Chilli

ASTA colour 45–90, low heat — the colour grade

Byadgi is the colour chilli, and it exists commercially because deep red and mild are a combination most chillies cannot deliver. Extractable colour runs ASTA 45–90 — the top of the Indian range — against pungency of only 8,000–15,000 SHU, roughly a tenth of Teja. The pods are characteristically wrinkled and dark, grown around Byadgi and Haveri in Karnataka, and the trade splits them two ways: Kaddi is the longer, thinner pod, while Dabbi is shorter and thicker and generally carries higher colour, which is why extractors bid for it specifically. Moisture runs ≤ 10%, with aflatoxin at the EU limits of 5 ppb B1 and 10 ppb total, and damaged and broken pods contracted at ≤ 3%.

Buy Byadgi when the dish or the product must look red without being hot: oleoresin colour extraction, natural food colourants, paprika-style powders, sambhar and curry blends across South India, and processed food where visual appeal is doing the work. That colour-without-heat property is also why it substitutes for paprika in many industrial applications at a competitive cost. Where it is wrong is anywhere pungency is the point — a hot sauce built on Byadgi will look magnificent and taste flat, and Teja is the answer there. One honest note on labelling: a good deal of chilli sold into retail as "Kashmiri" is in fact Byadgi, because genuine Kashmiri supply is small and the two look similar. If your programme specifically requires Kashmiri, contract it by name and verify it, because the substitution is common. CBIL supplies against SGS or Intertek certification of ASTA colour, SHU, moisture, aflatoxin, residues and foreign matter, in 25 kg jute or PP bags, container-load, on FOB, CFR and CIF terms.