Nutritionally these two products are close relatives. Commercially they behave quite differently, and the difference shows up in freight, in handling and in how much product is still intact when you open the container.
What each one is
Dried cassava chips are the simpler product. Roots are washed, chopped into pieces and sun-dried on open yards until the moisture is low enough for storage and transport.
Pellets take that a step further. The dried chips are ground and pressed through a die under heat and pressure, producing dense cylindrical pellets. The extra processing costs money, which is why pellets carry a premium over chips from the same origin.
Density is the real difference
The parameter that drives most of the commercial consequences is bulk density. Pellets are substantially denser than chips.
This matters because ocean freight is often constrained by volume rather than weight. A container filled with chips reaches its cubic limit before it reaches its weight limit, so you ship less product per container than the same box filled with pellets.
The result is a pricing trap worth being alert to. Chips look cheaper per tonne FOB. By the time the freight is added, the gap narrows, and on some routes it closes entirely. Always compare the two on landed cost per tonne delivered, not on the FOB figure.
Handling and dust
Pellets flow well. They move through augers, elevators and pneumatic systems without much trouble, and they generate comparatively little dust.
Chips are awkward by comparison. They are irregular in size and shape, they bridge in hoppers, and they produce a great deal of dust in handling. That dust is a nuisance, a housekeeping cost, and in enclosed spaces a genuine hazard.
If your intake system was designed for pelleted material, chips will cause problems that no price advantage compensates for.
Breakage and fines
Pellets are durable but not indestructible. Every transfer point — conveyor, chute, ship's hold, truck — breaks some of them down into fines.
A pellet cargo that has been handled repeatedly can arrive with a significant fines fraction, which behaves like chips rather than pellets and undoes some of the reason you paid the premium. Pellet durability is therefore worth asking about, particularly on routes with several transfers.
Chips do not have this problem in the same way, mainly because they are already broken.
Storage
Denser material stores in less space, which matters if your silo capacity is fixed. Pellets also resist moisture uptake somewhat better than chips, having less exposed surface area per tonne.
Chips, with their greater surface area and their tendency to hold fines, are more sensitive to humid storage.
Which to choose
Choose pellets if you have bulk handling equipment, are shipping a long distance where freight economics favour density, want less dust, or have limited storage space.
Choose chips if your handling is manual or bagged, the freight leg is short, you have the storage volume, and the FOB price advantage survives into landed cost for your particular route.
The honest answer for most international buyers shipping long distances is pellets, but run the landed-cost comparison for your route rather than assuming.
What to specify either way
- The form, explicitly — pellets or chips
- Starch minimum
- Maximum moisture, fibre, ash and sand
- For pellets: diameter and durability expectations
- For chips: an indication of size range and acceptable fines
- Packing, volume and destination
Sourcing either form from Thailand
SPG works with Thai cassava processors on both products and can price the two side by side for your route and volume, so the comparison is made on landed cost rather than on the FOB headline.