VATIS UPDATE Article

European Union (EU) researchers have developed tools and guidelines to help protect Europe’s spice and herb commodity chains from deliberate, accidental and natural biological and chemical contamination. The EU-funded SPICED project aims to mitigate these vulnerabilities by implementing best practices specifically geared to ensuring the safety of our spices and herbs. This is a novel approach to food safety, as traditionally experts have focused on major food ingredients, thus failing to properly identify contaminated spices and herbs as the cause of many food-borne infections and intoxications.

To accomplish this, project researchers focused on the spices most susceptible to contamination, such as pepper, paprika, nutmeg, vanilla, parsley, oregano and basil. First, they developed tailored tools for both detecting and preventing deliberate, accidental and natural contaminations, such as Salmonella and E-coli. This included characterising the heterogeneous matrices of spices and herbs, implementing on-site and high throughput diagnostic methods for detecting contamination, studying their intra- and inter-plant production and supply chains within the context of biological and chemical hazards.

Based on this initial work, the project team created innovative processes for reducing chemical alterations and ensuring the authenticity of spices and herbs. For example, the project demonstrated how sampling strategies that use non-targeted fingerprinting methods provide better hazard detection. Likewise, an exemplary spice and herb production and processing chain was developed, thus closing the door to key vulnerabilities. For spices like paprika and pepper, whose production and trade has been stagnant for decades, the project evaluated the entire value chain and made recommendations for updated best practices.