The story
AOAC International, informally AOAC, was founded September 8, 1884, as the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists, by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), to establish uniform chemical analysis methods for analyzing fertilizers. In 1927, it was moved to the newly formed Food, Drug and Insecticide organization which become the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1930.
From its initial scope of analyzing fertilizer, the organization expanded the contents of its methods book to cover dairy products, pesticides, microbiological contamination and animal feeds, among others. In 1965, due to its increasing area of focus for analytical work, the name was changed to the Association of Official Analytical Chemists. The name was changed again to the Association of Analytical Communities to reflect the growing international involvement, and then in 1991 it became AOAC INTERNATIONAL, with AOAC no longer having any legal meaning. Control of the organization remained with the FDA until 1979 when it became completely independent, although it still has close links to both the FDA and the USDA.
Full membership was limited to government analytical chemists until 1987 when membership was extended to industrial scientists. As well as government agencies, members, volunteers, and partners now also include people from academia, other international organizations, private laboratories, contract research organizations, instrument manufacturers, and rapid assay developers.
From Wikipedia’s article on AOAC International, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4