ISO standards for essential and vegetable oils of South Africa

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Karen Swanepoel

Southern African Essential Oil Producers Association, South Africa

: J Plant Physiol Pathol

Abstract

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Standards of aromatic and medicinal plants are not very well published and applied in developing countries. In South Africa, there have been only two International Standards Organization (ISO), standards published for medicinal plants namely Aloe ferox and Moringa oleifera. This situation led to exploitation by the buyers of oils from less developing countries. The recent increase in demand is observed but the standards are not keeping up with the new development in the industry. The fact that a lot of misnomers exist in the trade, can also be corrected botanically through the use of standards. In this presentation, the procedure for the writing of standards and the status of ISO standards as submitted by South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) is explained for Pelargonium var rose (Rose geranium), Adansonia digitata (Baobab), Sclerocarya birrea afra (Marula). A thorough database of the certificates of analysis of producers throughout South Africa was used to compile a range of expected values. This was then used for the ISO amended standard for the essential oil of Rose geranium and it has now been published by the SABS. The Baobab standard for oil has been accepted by the technical committee while Marula is also under consideration with the technical committee and will be available for public comment soon. The standards are important to distinguish South African oil from that of other countries as well as to indicate it as authentic and not fake. It also allows negotiation for better prices and internal quality control by the industry.

Biography

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Karen Swanepoel is working at Executive director Southern African Essential Oil Producers Association. Her research interest is medicinal plants.