European and global food standards. Economic institutions and multilateral communication in the early twentieth century

Convergent standards were an important way of promoting trade in food during an earlier period of globalization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The harmonization of measures for inspection and control of foodstuffs within a state was an expression of the rise in intraregional trade. Regulation of qualities, quantities, origins, tariffs and quotas was a part of state intervention worldwide. The literature has come to see food regulation as part of the relationship between experts, governments and private interests. This article aims to study the role and difficulties of a complex circuit of international knowledge and multilateral communication as well as the attempts to standardize particular regulatory systems by creating international committees. Secondly, the paper compares the form and role of local and national institutions and regulations on the control of foodstuffs, paying special attention to Spain and Germany as regards their different administrative and economic structures. There were heterogeneous -national and local- monitoring regimes. Globalization and multilateral communication was accompanied by territorialization.