(IPC, Jakarta) The Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI), the National Standards Body of Sri Lanka, has revised a numbers of the National Standards for various commodities, including for Whole Black and White Pepper (SLS 105-1).

Other standards for Pepper that have been revised by SLSI, include the followings:

Part 9 – Determination of Piperine content of black pepper and white pepper
Part 10 – Determination of Piperine content of pepper and pepper oleoresins – high-performance liquid chromatography (ISO 11027: 1993)

The revision of standards is to ensure that Pepper produced and shipped from Sri Lanka are meeting the increasing quality requirements laid down by the consuming countries.

According to Mr. W.D.L. Gunaratne, Chairman of the SLSI Working Group on Spices and Condiments, who finalize the standards for Pepper, said that the recent revision on the Sri Lankan Standards for Whole Black and White Pepper were finalized after the Committee comprising of experts took into considerations of the comments received from the traders, general public and other interesting groups in Sri Lanka.

Mr. Gunaratne, the Director General of Department of Export Agriculture, is also the Liaison Officer of Sri Lanka to IPC. Sri Lanka, a full member of the International Pepper Community, produces and exports many annual and perennial spices, including Cinnamon, Pepper, Clove, Nutmeg and Cardamom.

The revised Sri Lanka national standards for whole black and white pepper as well as ground white and black pepper, are given in Tables 1, 2 and 3 respectively.