What Spice Recalls Mean for Canadian Consumers

Just a few days ago, a major US brand issued a recall both in the States and Canada of their whole organic peppercorns for salmonella. 

The full recall notice can be found here as well as details of what to do if you have bought the affected items:

 http://www.inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2014-04-05/eng/1396736705517/1396736719852?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter#recall-media

The impact a recall can have on both consumer and brand is significant. Organic spices are a food product (usually free from irradiation and fumigation) and therefore not immune from microbiological issues and pathogens. Indeed, no food company is immune from this happening to their products or spices but there are ways this can be mitigated by both the brand and consumer (believe it or not), especially as not all organic spices are the same. 

There are many factors that contribute to pathogens like storage conditions, transit times, micro analysis at harvest and beyond. However, the larger the company, the more likely they are to buy their products in very large quantities leading to potentially longer warehouse and storage time until sold, increasing the risk of pathogens growing in the product. This also increases the reach of people who could have bought the products, taking longer and making it harder to contain the issue and to ensure safe return of affected products. Recalls on a large scale may also cause price fluctuations in the affected product for other brands and ultimately you, the consumer. So what can you do?

What can consumers to do to mitigate their risk?

• Buy from local or smaller companies.
• Don't be afraid to try other brands - you might be pleasantly surprised!
• Don't be afraid to ask questions to the brand. You are the consumer and you have the right to know!
• Consider buying packaged versus bulk organic spices as this ensure better traceability in case of recall issues.
• Consider choosing brands that offer the shortest supply or most recent harvest.
• Use your spices everyday to avoid long term storage issues in your home.

What does Spice Sanctuary to do to mitigate this risk?

• Buy their products in smaller batches
• Ensure products meet all requisite screening parameters before and after buying them
• Ensure products are recent harvest to maximize freshness and minimize spoilage
• Ensure products are only packaged the once - rebranded or repackaged goods are exposed to multiple environments that may contribute to contaminants.
• Ensure spices are the best grades available - high volatile oils can act as inhibitors to bacterial micro-organisms

Six Ways to Knowing How Long Your Spices Will Keep

This is the $64,000,000 question in the spice world and the THE most common one I get asked so it was time to post about this.

Most spices naturally have a long shelf life but there is no real way to audit this as a consumer.  To define spices as fresh is a little odd given the reality of the process involved from growing them to getting them to your pantry. Freshness is, therefore, better used to describe how long the spices will keep their volatile oils for and this is dependent on what happens to the spices at every stage in their journey. Think of it as a bus journey and the number of stops it has to make to get you from A to B, the journey time in between stops and how long you stop and what happens at each stop too.

The next time you go to the grocery store or are thinking of replenishing your spice cupboard, here are the 6 questions you should be asking yourself or the grocery store:

1. Does the package tell you whether the spices are irradiated and fumigated or not?

2. Are the spices certified organic?

3. Are the organic spices certified to the standard of your country?

4. Are the spices packaged in your country?

5. Does the spice company directly import the spices into your country or do they source from intermediary suppliers?

6. How many times have the spices you buy been packed and re-packed?

Why you should be asking these questions and what impact they has on the longevity of your spices is discussed in the table below. Click on the image to view in larger format.Please note this does not speak to quality of the spices as, needless to say, the better the quality, the better your spices.

That was the long answer! The short answer is, assuming the spices are non-irradiated, of high quality and delivered to you from Farm to Pantry in as short a supply chain as possible,  and, once opened, you store your spices appropriately, seeds should maintain a good level of volatile oil and aroma for between 1-2 years and the ground spices 6-8 months.