ASTA American Spice Trade

Note-. ASTA = American Spice Trade Association, ND = not detected. 

Source-. Bernhard etal. (1971) ASTA (American Spice Trade Association). 

Note ASTA = American Spice Trade Association. 

The American Spice Trade Association (ASTA) (4) accepts spice as any dried plant product used primarily for seasoning purposes. This broad definition was designed so that items labeled only as spice could give adequate protection to proprietary formulas for spice mixtures. However, ASTA recommends that the dehydrated vegetables and the color spices be listed separately by name on all labels. ASTA also has recommended that the capsicums, no matter the species, be delisted as spices and labeled separately. 

The American Spice Trade Association (ASTA), estabUshed by the industry, works with U.S. government organizations to set up specifications (9) for spice products that conform specificaHy to the laws, however generalized they are. 

A prerequisite for any quality control is the definition of how the characteristics of a specific raw material, an intermediate product or a final product of a manufacturing process should be described. This means that all characteristics for every single product have to be defined in adequate standards and specifications so that the results obtained can be compared with these data. Numerous standards and specifications have been established in more or less official specification collections, for example pharmacopoeias, the aforementioned ISO or DIN standards, standards of the Essential Oil Association or the American Spice Trade Organization (ASTA). 

The American Spice Trade Association (ASTA) (12). adopted, in 196B, an official method (21.0) for pungency evaluation for capsicum, which appears to be an adaptation of procedures then in use by some flavour houses. These methods were probably developed as a routine quality control procedure, on samples obtained usually... 

Apart from competing for markets, developing country producers and exporters face many challenges, including that of quality issues. Spice exports are subject to strict quality standards for food safety set by the American Spice Trade Association (ASTA) and the European Spice Association (ESA). Demand is growing for high quality and processed spices. This trend for value-added products offers new business opportunities in the spice trade. 

Quality requirements for various clove products is country specific. The American Spice Trade Association (ASTA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommendations for whole spice (clove) are illustrated in Table 8.10. 

ASTA (1985) Official Analytical Methods for Spices, 3rd edn. American Spices Trade Association, New York. 

ASTA. 1986. Official Analytical Methods of the American Spice Trade Association. 2nd edn. 

American Spice Trade Association (ASTA) www.astaspice.org... 

ASTA, Official Analytical Methods, Vol. 3, American Spice Trade Assoc., New York, 1985. 

In 1780, the Dutch and English fought a war over the spice trade and the Dutch lost all spice trading centres. The Americans began their entry into the world spice race in 1672 (ASTA, 1960). 

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