The grade buyers ask about

Sell to anybody professional and the word grade will come up. It does not mean what it means in most categories, and knowing exactly what it refers to puts you ahead of other producers your size.

What a buyer means by grade

There is no single letter grade for spice the way there is for honey or eggs. What a buyer is asking about is a combination of cleanliness, measured against the ASTA specifications, and quality, measured mostly as volatile oil content.

Those are separate documents from separate tests, and a supplier who conflates them is telling you something.

The two numbers that matter

ASTA cleanliness. Limits on insect fragments, whole insects, rodent hair, excreta and foreign matter, by spice. Written to meet or exceed the FDA defect action levels, so compliance places the material inside a published federal limit.

Volatile oil. The graded quality measure, expressed as a percentage, with an ASTA minimum per spice. Black pepper, cinnamon and oregano are the ones most often quoted.

Together they say the material is clean enough and strong enough. Neither says it is authentic, and neither addresses pathogens.

What to publish and what to hold

Publish that you buy to ASTA cleanliness, because it is true, checkable and more than most small producers can say. Publishing specific volatile oil figures per lot is honest and creates an expectation you then have to meet on every subsequent lot.

The middle position producers often land on is to state the standard you buy to and to provide the certificates on request. Wholesale buyers ask; retail customers almost never do.

Using it as a small producer

Asking your supplier for both numbers marks you out as a serious buyer and changes the conversation. It also gives you something concrete to say when a customer asks why your jar costs more than a supermarket's.

Keep the certificates with the lot record. The moment they matter is a moment when producing them quickly is the whole point.

References