Most first-time exporters start with a list of buyers' emails. A better place to start is one question: which countries actually paid for this product last year, and how much? You can answer it for free in about fifteen minutes. Here is how, with real 2024 numbers.
1. Get the right HS code (this is where most people go wrong)
Customs and trade statistics are organised by the Harmonized System (HS), a six-digit product code that is shared worldwide. Countries add their own digits after the first six. India's ITC-HS uses eight, for example. International comparisons only work at six digits.
Pick the most specific six-digit code that honestly describes what you ship:
- Green (unroasted) coffee is 0901.11, "Coffee; not roasted or decaffeinated". That is a clean match.
- Turmeric is 0910.30, which covers turmeric (curcuma) in every form. That is close enough, though it isn't one commercial grade.
- Moringa leaf powder has no code of its own. It usually falls under 1211.90, a basket of plants used in pharmacy and perfumery. Any number you pull for it covers far more than moringa.
Write down how specific your code is. It decides how much you can trust everything that follows.
2. Pull imports from the world
Open Comtrade Plus (comtradeplus.un.org), or call the public preview API directly. No key is needed for small queries:
https://comtradeapi.un.org/public/v1/preview/C/A/HS?flowCode=M&period=2024&partnerCode=0&cmdCode=090111
This query asks for annual (A) imports (flowCode=M) of HS 090111 in 2024 from all partners combined (partnerCode=0, "World"), across every reporting country. Each row has a primaryValue in US dollars and, usually, a quantity in kilograms.
For green coffee, the response I pulled on 27 Oct 2026 had 147 reporting countries. The top three were:
| Reporter | 2024 imports, HS 090111 (USD) |
|---|---|
| USA | 6,319,859,239 |
| Germany | 4,706,705,407 |
| Italy | 2,753,529,337 |
3. Read the numbers correctly
- Imports are usually valued CIF. That means the value includes freight and insurance to the buyer's border, so it is not comparable to an FOB export quote.
- Value divided by quantity gives a rough unit value. Use it as a sanity check on price bands, not as a price.
- Not every country has reported yet. A missing country may simply be late, so check the reporter count.
- Big producers can be big importers. In 2024, India reported $42.1M of turmeric imports (HS 091030) and ranked second after the USA ($56.2M). That is easy to miss if you assume a producer never imports. It is also a lead: someone in India is buying turmeric from abroad.
4. Go from country to company
A country can't sign a purchase order. Once you have three to five target countries, narrow down to actual buyers:
- Trade show exhibitor and visitor lists. Exhibitor lists for fairs like Anuga, Gulfood, BioFach or Seafood Expo Global are often public and name real companies in your category.
- Industry associations. Member directories (coffee, tea, herbal products, valves…) list firms that already buy in the category.
- Company types, not just names. Ask which kind of business buys this as an input: botanical manufacturers, spice grinders, food wholesalers. Then search for that type in the target country.
- Job titles. Your email should reach the purchasing manager or the category buyer, not info@.
Then write to them with the specification they would file: grade, moisture, certificates and MOQ. Don't lead with a market-size slide.
Where BuyerRadar fits
I got tired of redoing steps 1–4 by hand, so I built BuyerRadar (https://nidhi-bhai.github.io/buyer-radar/). For 48 curated products (40 goods and 8 software categories), it:
- ranks importing countries from a stored UN Comtrade 2024 snapshot, using the exact API values and saying when the HS heading is broader than the product, as it is for moringa;
- scores buyer company types, trade shows, associations, marketplaces and job titles from 1 to 5 on Money, Authority and Need, with a written reason and a source link for each score;
- shows the top 5 channels for free, and sells the full ranked report for $19.
Its limits:
- It covers only those 48 products, and it doesn't name individual importers.
- Every score except the Comtrade figures is an editorial judgment, not a measurement.
- The company types and job titles use US classifications (NAICS and O*NET).
- The software categories have no trade data at all.
Treat it as a shortlist to check, not as a buyer list.
The method above works for any product, whether or not it is on that list. The free data is good enough to stop you from cold-emailing the wrong country.
If you want it in one file, the full ranking with an outreach angle for each channel is a $19 Markdown/PDF report. Every source in it is public and linked, so you're paying for the assembly, not secret data.
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