The Project

• Quality Standards and SPICED concept

  Quality standards and surveillance

  The specific quality requirements in food are broadly regulated by national or international law as well as by national and international standards set by several organizations.
  
  Additionally, a number of spice and food associations, like the European Spice Association and the American Spice Trade Organization, as well as companies and some retailers hold their own standards, which are normally more explicitly and strict than general standards.
  The limited availability of governmental and industrial control and monitoring systems for various microbial and chemical agents in condiments is aggravated by the lack of diagnostic methods for detecting hazards in the heterogeneous and challenging matrix properties of spices and herbs.
  
  SPICED will elaborate the issue of spices and herbs in its entirety and aims to improve safety and security within the condiment chain and, as a consequence, of broad areas in the food chain.

  SPICED concept

  The whole structure of SPICED aims at securing the food supply chain of spices and herbs against major deliberate, accidental or natural biological and chemical contaminations and therefore at the protection of the European consumers’ health as well as protection against economic loss.