Spices webinar encourages compromise for achieving consensus on saffron and nutmeg

In a preview webinar held on 22 September 2022 ahead of the 6th session of the Codex Committee on Spices and Culinary Herbs (CCSCH), taking place from 26 September to 3 October, Chairperson Dr M.R. Sudharsan, India, said the committee had learnt from its experience of operating virtually and many issues on standards being considered had been resolved by working groups meeting before the plenary sessions. “Now we are more focused, and hope delegates also have gained experience by attending other virtual meetings to help the committee discuss the important issues and make progress,” he said.

With a potentially never-ending workload of over 100 spices and herbs to develop standards for, the committee has grouped products based on the part of the plant from which the spice or herb is derived. Through these groupings and the development of a template it is expected that a series of standards for important spices could be completed in a reasonable amount of time.

The webinar heard from experts leading work on several spices in the Codex Step process including saffron and nutmeg which are close to being recommended for final adoption by the Codex Alimentarius Commission in November 2022 as well as ongoing work on chili peppers and paprika, small cardamom and turmeric. When setting standards for these products trade data and other published data are vital for the committee to be able to elaborate texts based on science, the webinar heard.

“Working virtually there is a time constraint,” said Sudharsan,  encouraging delegates to plan their interventions on substantive issues and to be “prepared for some compromises in the interest of achieving consensus and making progress.”

Learn more

Working papers and provisional timetable on the CCSCH6 web pages