About CCSCH
The Codex Committee on Spices and Culinary Herbs (CCSCH) was established
in 2013, following a proposal from the Indian delegation at the 35th
session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) in 2012, to establish
a subsidiary body of the Codex Alimentarius Commission “on spices,
aromatic herbs and their formulations”.
CAC agreed to establish the Codex Committee on Spices and Culinary Herbs (CCSCH), hosted
by India, noting the need for international harmonized standards to
prevent barriers to international trade and the benefit to small farmers
and developing countries. The name of the Committee reflects the fact
that the herbs to be considered are limited to those for culinary
purposes and not for use as food additives or other purposes.
With a comprehensive list of commodities to consider, CAC in 2017 supported developing group standards for spices and culinary herbs based on plants parts e.g. fruits and berries, seeds, leaves etc with a view to optimizing the use of resources and expediting the Committee’s work.
Related news
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
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