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Spice grades and standards explorer

Which spices have a legal requirement, a trade grade, a published specification or a protected name, and which of those anybody is obliged to meet. Here are the 132 rules SpiceHQ has read, for 50 spices, sorted by what kind of rule each is. Choose a kind of rule, a place or a spice and the list narrows. Each rule links to the page that sets it out in full.

Narrow the rules

Showing all 132 rules, for 50 spices and for spices in general.

The rules, by kind

Each kind opens with what it means, because a legal floor, a grade and a protected name answer different questions. Each rule links to the page that sets it out in full, with its figures and its sources.

Legal requirement

What the law of one country requires before the product may be sold there under this name. It is a floor for compliance and says nothing about how good a lot above it is.

15 rules

Defect tolerance

The level of a defect at which one regulator acts. It is not a grade, and a lot within it is lawful on that count, not thereby good.

5 rules

Standard of identity

A legal definition of what may be sold under a name in one country. It fixes what the product is, not how good it is.

1 rule

Labelling definition

A legal definition of a word on a label in one country. It governs how a product is described, not its quality.

1 rule

Trade grade

Named grades the trade sorts a commodity into. A grade describes the properties it is defined on, usually size, cleanliness and appearance, and predicts flavour only so far as those do.

33 rules

Export specification

What a product must meet to leave one country. It binds exporters there and nobody else.

1 rule

Voluntary specification

A published specification that no law requires. It applies where a buyer, a seller or a government chooses to adopt it.

17 rules

Commercial specification

Figures agreed between a buyer and a seller. They follow no published scheme and differ from contract to contract.

1 rule

Designation specification

The registered rules of one protected name. They bind producers who use that name and are not a standard for the spice in general.

34 rules

Protected name

A registration showing that a name is protected and tied to a place. It is not a grade, and a product carrying the name is not thereby better than one from elsewhere.

21 rules

Marketing language

Words with no agreed criteria behind them. They tell a buyer nothing that can be checked.

3 rules

How to read a rule

A grade, a legal limit and a protected name are printed alike on a packet and are not the same kind of thing.

Only a trade grade sorts a spice by quality, and it does so on the properties it is defined on, usually size, cleanliness and appearance. A legal requirement is a floor: a lot that clears it is lawful, and may be good or poor. A defect tolerance is the point at which a regulator acts. A protected name ties a product to a place and a method, and its rules bind only those who use the name.

Each rule says who stands behind it, where it applies if that has been written down, and whether anyone must meet it: by law, in order to use a name, or not at all. Where the sources do not settle whether a rule is compulsory, it says so. A rule that is no longer in force is marked, with what ended it, and is kept because older packets and older writing still refer to it.

A place is where a rule has force. A requirement of Indian law says what may be sold in India; it is not a property of the spice, and the same spice sold elsewhere answers to other rules or to none.

What this list covers, and what it does not

These are the rules SpiceHQ has read at their source. It is not every rule in the world.

A spice that is missing from the list, or that has no rule of one kind, has had none read. That is not evidence that no rule exists. A rule that could not be reached or read at its source has been left out, not repeated at second hand.

The counts below describe what could be reached, and should not be read as a measure of how much each country regulates.

By kind of rule

  • Law: 22
  • Trade grades and export rules: 34
  • Voluntary and commercial specifications: 18
  • Protected names: 55
  • Marketing language: 3

By place

  • Cambodia: 1
  • European Union: 17
  • France: 3
  • Hungary: 3
  • India: 51
  • Italy: 4
  • Mexico: 2
  • Portugal: 2
  • Spain: 2
  • Sri Lanka: 4
  • Türkiye: 17
  • United States: 7
  • No one place given: 33

A rule is filed under the place written down for it, or failing that under the country of the national body that issues it. One filed under no place is international, as the ISO and Codex specifications are, or comes from a body that names no country. A name protected in the European Union is filed under the Union as well as under the country it comes from, so the places add up to more than the 132 rules.

7 of the rules apply to many spices at once and are set out in the authenticity register. The limits a specification sets, figure by figure, are on each spice’s own page. How a spice is adulterated, and how that is detected, is in the authenticity explorer.