A specification is only worth the testing behind it. This page sets out what we check, when we check it, and what travels with your shipment.
What is tested on every lot
- Moisture, total ash and acid-insoluble ash
- Extraneous and foreign matter
- ASTA colour value, for chilli and paprika products
- Scoville pungency, where heat is contracted
- Volatile oil content, for aromatic spices
- Curcumin content by HPLC, for turmeric
What goes to an accredited laboratory
Pesticide residue and microbiological testing is placed with accredited third-party laboratories rather than done in-house. This is deliberate: your auditors need a report they can verify independently of us, and an in-house number does not give them that.
Where a destination market sets its own limits, with EU maximum residue levels the strictest most of our buyers face, we test against those limits specifically. For sesame, Salmonella testing is carried out before shipment, not after arrival. For rice bound for the EU, the residue panel includes tricyclazole.
What travels with the shipment
The certificate of analysis, the phytosanitary certificate and the certificate of origin are prepared alongside the goods and despatched with them. Containers are held at destination for paperwork far more often than for quality, and demurrage accrues daily while it is sorted out.
Pre-shipment samples are available on request for any product in the catalogue.
How a sample gets drawn
Most quality disputes are really sampling disputes. If the buyer draws from the top tier of a container and the supplier drew a composite across the lot, the two results will differ and both sides will believe the other is at fault.
We draw composite samples across the lot rather than from whichever bags are nearest the door, record how many increments were taken and from where, and state that on the certificate. If your quality system specifies a sampling plan, send it and we will follow it instead.
Retained samples
A sealed representative sample of every shipped lot is retained for twelve months from the shipment date. That sample is the reference if a claim is raised: it is tested against the same parameter by the same method, and where the two results conflict materially either side can call for a binding analysis at an agreed independent laboratory.
A claim tested against material that cannot be tied back to the shipped lot cannot be assessed at all, which is why the retained sample matters more than it sounds. The deadlines and the evidence are set out in our Quality, Testing and Claims Policy.
Traceability
Each lot carries its origin region and crop year from purchase through to the certificate of analysis. That is only possible because material is bought in the producing belts rather than through a chain of intermediaries: by the time a container reaches an importer through three traders, the crop year is a guess and the origin is a region rather than a district.
It matters commercially rather than romantically. A specification that names a region is only enforceable if the supplier knows which region the material came from. Origin sourcing covers how that works in practice.
The regulatory framework
Exporting food commodities from India sits inside a defined framework, and it is worth knowing what the pieces are when you are assessing any Indian supplier:
- Importer-Exporter Code: issued by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade. No consignment leaves India without one.
- FSSAI: food business operators, including exporters, require registration or licence under the Food Safety and Standards Act.
- Spices Board: exporters of spices register with the Board under the Spices Board Act, 1986.
- APEDA: scheduled agricultural products, including several of the pulses and grains in this catalogue, fall under its remit.
- Plant quarantine: the national plant protection organisation issues phytosanitary certificates where the destination requires one.
Our own registrations and certifications are listed below where they have been recorded. Ask for copies at enquiry: a supplier who will not send them is telling you something.
Testing against the destination, not a general standard
A certificate stating compliance with Indian standards tells a European buyer very little, because the two frameworks set different numbers. Material bound for a specific market has to be tested against that market’s panel, at a laboratory accredited to run it, on the actual lot being shipped and before the container is stuffed.
Tell us the destination at enquiry so the specification and the pre-shipment testing are written against it. A limit that first appears at the destination port is a specification that was never agreed. EU residue limits explains where consignments most often fail.
Treatment
Ethylene oxide is not available for EU-bound goods, and steam sterilisation is the mainstream replacement. Steam is effective and leaves no residue, but it is heat and moisture applied to an aromatic product: volatile oil falls, colour can shift in green herbs, and the material has to be re-dried afterwards.
Decide the treatment before the first order rather than after a microbiological result, and specify the post-treatment values rather than the pre-treatment ones. Steam sterilisation and the end of ethylene oxide covers the trade-offs.