Saffron is mainly grown in the Middle East as well as in other countries in Asia and southern Europe. The plant requires a particular soil and climate. The careful extraction of the three threads per flower and the subsequent sorting of the threads is labour-intensive manual work.

The closed blossom is harvested before sunrise. Around 150,000 flowers per hectare of cultivated land yield one kilogram of dried saffron threads, which equates to five kilograms of flowers.