“The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence
of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce.”
– Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, 1858)
Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet
As the U.S. member body to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) encourages its members and relevant stakeholders to participate in discovering standardization solutions in a broad range of technologies and markets with like-minded experts in other national standards bodies. The full sweep of ANSI’s participation in consensus documents developed by the ISO is described in the link below:
ISO Programs – Overview
Today we revisit a product familiar to daily life at home and in business: coffee. The ISO administers leading practice discovery and promulgation in the global coffee value chain through parent Technical Committee 34 (TC34) with the Association Française de Normalisation as the global Secretariat with the Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas as the twinned Secretariat*. Subcommittee 15 oversees standardization in the field of coffee and coffee products, covering the coffee chain from green coffee to consumption, in particular. Standardization includes terminology, sampling, test methods and analysis, product specifications and requirements for packaging, storage and transportation
From the ISO/TC 34 prospectus:
Business Plan ISO TC34 Food Products
Sample from ISO Online Browing Platform: (Expect strong access firewalls)
Coffee and coffee products — Vocabulary
Coffee — Sensory analysis — Vocabulary
Roasted ground coffee — Determination of moisture content
The Secretariats for this subcommittee is currently held by Colombia (ICONTEC) but, with ANSI announcing in 2019 that it is relinquishing its role as the US Technical Advisory Group Administrator in 2019, there has been no US stakeholder participating. In 2019 ANSI posted an invitation for another US-based stakeholder to assume the voice of the United States:
ANSI Standards Action Page 34
ANSI US TAGs to the International Organization for Standardization
Apart from the passion that young people have for fair trade in any market, we see this as an opportunity for faculty and students to gain insight into the geo-politics of food supply generally and the subtleties of coffee markets. Business schools, agricultural colleges, international studies program developers who may be, and should be, interested in a leadership opportunity on behalf of the United States should communicate directly with ANSI’s ISO Team (([email protected]).
We devotes an hour every month to review public commenting opportunities on all international standards. The work products of TC 34 appears on the standing agenda of both our Global and Food teleconferences. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting.
Issue: [19-46]
Category: Academic, International
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Christine Fischer
* ISO Guidance on Twinning
LEARN MORE:
“The Golden Cup” Coffee Standards
“Gold Cup History & Future”