Thai script ไส้อั่ว. Defined by TCPS 294/2547 as pork and pork fat with salt, sugar, white soy sauce, dried chilli, lemongrass, garlic, shallot, kaffir lime leaf and turmeric, stuffed into a cleaned casing and cooked. Protein at least 13 per cent, fat no more than 30 per cent, all preservatives and all synthetic colours prohibited. The standard itself offers ไส้กรอกล้านนา, Lanna sausage, as an acceptable product name. Every current certificate holder in the whole sai ua family is in Lampang, Nan or Phrae.
The standard's own ingredient list
The Thai Industrial Standards Institute published TCPS 294/2547, Sai Ua under its English title Northern Thai Sausage. Its scope covers ready-to-eat sai ua made from pork and sold in a container, and its definition clause names the following. The standard says the herbs and spices are ground or pounded before mixing, and that the mixture is stuffed into cleaned pig intestine or another edible casing and then cooked — so a sai ua that meets the standard is a cooked product, not a fresh one you take home raw.
| Ingredient | Thai | How the standard treats it |
|---|---|---|
| Pork | เนื้อหมู | The base of the definition. The standard's scope covers only pork sai ua. |
| Pork fat | มันหมู | Named separately from the meat, and the reason for the 30 per cent fat ceiling. |
| Salt | เกลือ | Seasoning group |
| Sugar | น้ำตาล | Seasoning group |
| White soy sauce | ซีอิ๊วขาว | Seasoning group |
| Dried chilli | พริกแห้ง | Spice and herb group |
| Lemongrass | ตะไคร้ | Spice and herb group |
| Garlic | กระเทียม | Spice and herb group |
| Shallot | หอม | Spice and herb group |
| Kaffir lime leaf | ใบมะกรูด | Spice and herb group |
| Turmeric | ขมิ้น | Spice and herb group - and the only route to the colour, since synthetic colours are banned |
| Soft pork bone | กระดูกหมูอ่อน | Optional. The standard says it may be added, nothing more. |
The numbers, including two bans
A specification is only as good as what it measures. This one measures ten things, and two of them are outright prohibitions rather than limits — which is unusual, and worth knowing before you read a label.
| What the standard measures | The requirement |
|---|---|
| Protein | Not less than 13 per cent by weight |
| Fat | Not more than 30 per cent by weight |
| Preservatives | Prohibited - all kinds |
| Synthetic colours | Prohibited - all kinds |
| Total plate count | Not more than 10,000 colonies per gram |
| Salmonella | Must not be found in a 25 gram sample |
| Staphylococcus aureus | Must not be found in a 0.1 gram sample |
| Clostridium perfringens | Must not be found in a 0.1 gram sample |
| E. coli (MPN method) | Fewer than 3 per gram |
| Yeast and mould | Not more than 100 colonies per gram |
The two bans do most of the work. With every preservative prohibited, a certified sai ua keeps only as long as refrigeration and its own cooking allow, which is why the labelling clause insists on both the date it was made and an expiry or best-before date, together with storage advice. With every synthetic colour prohibited, the orange has to come from the turmeric and dried chilli in the definition. A market sausage that is a uniform bright orange and keeps for a fortnight is not meeting this standard, whatever else it may be.
The labelling clause also requires the product name — the standard’s own examples are ไส้อั่วสมุนไพร (herb sai ua) and ไส้กรอกล้านนา (Lanna sausage) — the net weight, storage and consumption advice, and the maker’s name and address or registered trademark. Where a foreign language is used, it must mean the same as the Thai.
Five sai ua standards, and where the certificates actually are
Searching TISI’s register for ไส้อั่ว returns five published standards. The two newest were both set in 2568, which is the most recent movement in this family.
| Standard | Number | Certificate position on 8 September 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| ไส้อั่ว - sai ua | 294/2547 | Pork. The original, and the one with certificate holders in Lampang and Nan. |
| ไส้อั่วปลา - fish sai ua | 1225/2549 | One certificate holder, a community enterprise in Phrae. |
| ไส้อั่ววุ้นเส้น - glass-noodle sai ua | 1226/2549 | No current certificate holder. |
| ไส้อั่วไก่ - chicken sai ua | 1713/2568 | New in 2568. One holder in Nan, certified for a black-chicken version. |
| ไส้อั่วเนื้อ - beef sai ua | 1714/2568 | New in 2568. No current certificate holder. |
We queried the certificate register directly rather than relying on the standard list. Against the pork standard it returns two current holders: a limited partnership in Mueang Lampang district, Lampang, certified for a herb-recipe pork sai ua under certificate 1384-1/294 running from 15 September 2568 to 14 September 2573; and a limited partnership in Mueang Nan district, Nan, under certificate 578-1/294 running from 17 June 2567 to 16 June 2570. Both certificates were issued by their own provincial industry office, which is how this scheme works: a named producer, a named recipe, a certificate that expires after three to five years.
Add the fish holder in Rong Kwang district, Phrae and the new chicken holder in Phu Phiang district, Nan, and every current certificate in this family sits in one of three northern provinces. We are naming districts and provinces rather than individuals: two of the four holders are private people, and their names and mobile numbers being on a government page is not a reason for us to republish them.
What we could not confirm, and did not invent
- Proportions. The standard names ingredients and sets a protein floor and a fat ceiling. It does not give quantities, so nobody can tell you the ratio of lemongrass to kaffir lime leaf from an official source.
- Whether any seller must be certified. We confirmed certificates are issued to named producers by provincial industry offices and expire. We found no official statement on whether a seller is obliged to hold one, so a low certificate count is a fact about certificates, not about how many people make sai ua.
- Any heritage listing. The Department of Cultural Promotion’s intangible cultural heritage portal at ich.culture.go.th does not resolve, so we make no claim about whether sai ua is registered.
- Prices, shops and market stalls. No official source, so no names and no numbers on this page.
- What is in an uncertified sausage. Everything above describes a product certified to TCPS 294/2547. Most sai ua sold in Thailand is not, and for those the bans on preservatives and colours simply do not apply.
Frequently asked questions
Thai Community Product Standard TCPS 294/2547 answers it in one clause. Sai ua means a product made from pork and pork fat, seasoned with seasonings and with spices or herbs such as salt, sugar, white soy sauce, dried chilli, lemongrass, garlic, shallot, kaffir lime leaf and turmeric, ground or pounded; soft pork bone may also be added; the mixture is combined, stuffed into cleaned pig intestine or another edible casing, and then cooked. That is the whole definition. Two things follow from it. The herb list is the dish - lemongrass and kaffir lime leaf are not a regional flourish, they are in the government's own specification. And the standard's scope covers only ready-to-eat pork sai ua in a container, so a fish or chicken version is a different standard with a different number, not a variant of this one.
Not if it meets the standard. Clause 3.8 of TCPS 294/2547 is blunt: the use of all preservatives and all synthetic colours is prohibited. Not limited to a permitted quantity - prohibited. That is stricter than the standard for khao soi paste, which bans synthetic colours but allows preservatives within the amounts Thai law separately permits. The practical reading is that the orange colour of sai ua that meets this standard comes from turmeric and dried chilli, because there is no legal route to any other source, and that a certified sai ua has a genuinely short shelf life, which is why clause 6.1 requires the label to carry both the date it was made and an expiry or best-before date, plus storage advice such as keep refrigerated. It also means that sai ua you buy uncertified, from a market stall, is outside all of this, and you have no written assurance either way.
Northern Thailand, and the government's own documents say so three different ways. First, TISI publishes the English title of TCPS 294/2547 as Northern Thai Sausage. Second, the standard's labelling clause lists the product names a maker may use, and one of them is ไส้กรอกล้านนา - Lanna sausage - so a Ministry of Industry document names the kingdom it comes from. Third, and most concretely, we queried the register of certified producers on 8 September 2026 and every single current certificate across the sai ua family sits in the north: two pork holders in Lampang and Nan, the fish holder in Phrae, and the new chicken holder in Nan. Four certificates, three northern provinces, no exceptions. That is the strongest form of this evidence, because it is a record of who is actually making the certified product rather than anyone's opinion about where it belongs.
Yes, and two of them were standardised recently. The register carries five standards in this family. The original, TCPS 294/2547, is pork and its scope says so. TCPS 1225/2549 covers fish sai ua and TCPS 1226/2549 covers a glass-noodle version. Then in 2568 two more were published: TCPS 1713/2568 for chicken sai ua and TCPS 1714/2568 for beef sai ua. The chicken standard already has a certificate holder, an individual producer in Phu Phiang district, Nan, certified for a black-chicken sai ua. If you do not eat pork, those numbers are what to look for on a label - and note that each is a separate standard, so a product certified against 294/2547 is pork by definition and cannot be anything else.
Partly in a laboratory and partly by a tasting panel, and the panel is written into the standard. Clause 8.1.1 requires a panel of at least five people experienced in inspecting sai ua, each scoring independently. They look at four things - general appearance, colour, aroma and flavour, and texture - on a four-point scale. To pass, each characteristic must average at least three across all assessors, and no characteristic may be scored one by any single assessor, so one strong objection fails the batch. The written criteria are specific: the pieces in one container must be the same shape and similar in size with the filling evenly distributed; the colour must be natural to the ingredients and not scorched; the aroma must carry the spices and be free of rancid, musty, foul or sour notes; the texture must be neither crumbly nor hard. Alongside that, three containers are sampled for foreign matter, packaging and labelling, three for the sensory test, and five are combined for protein, fat, additives and microbiology.
Related guides
- Khao soi — the other northern dish with a government-defined paste, and the noodle that is not gluten-free.
- Larb — northern larb spice has its own standard, and the raw version carries a real health warning.
- Khanom chin — fermented against fresh, and the pH that separates them.
- Lampang — the province holding certificates for both sai ua and larb spice.
- Cooking classes in Chiang Mai — where the herb pounding actually gets taught.
- Thai regional food — how the northern kitchen differs from the other three.
- Street-food vendor permits — the rules that do apply to a stall, as opposed to a packaged product.
- Chiang Mai — the city, the cost of living and what is listed there.
Lampang, Nan and Phrae are where the certificates are
They are also three of the least expensive provinces in the north to live in. If northern food is what drew you, look at the north properly.
Sources & References
- Thai Industrial Standards Institute, Ministry of Industry - Thai Community Product Standard TCPS 294/2547, Sai Ua, published in English by TISI itself as Northern Thai Sausage. Its definition clause 2.1 names pork and pork fat seasoned with salt, sugar, white soy sauce, dried chilli, lemongrass, garlic, shallot, kaffir lime leaf and turmeric, ground or pounded, optionally with soft pork bone, stuffed into cleaned pig intestine or another edible casing and cooked. Clause 3.6 requires protein of at least 13 per cent by weight, clause 3.7 caps fat at 30 per cent, and clause 3.8 prohibits all preservatives and all synthetic colours. Clause 6.1 sets the labelling, and names Lanna sausage as an acceptable product name
- Thai Industrial Standards Institute - the public register of published community product standards, queried directly on 8 September 2026, which returns five standards whose names begin with sai ua: 294/2547 sai ua, 1225/2549 fish sai ua, 1226/2549 glass-noodle sai ua, 1713/2568 chicken sai ua and 1714/2568 beef sai ua. The two 2568 standards are the newest of the five
- Thai Industrial Standards Institute - the public register of certified community producers, queried directly on 8 September 2026. Against TCPS 294/2547 it returns two current certificate holders, a limited partnership in Mueang Lampang district, Lampang (certificate 1384-1/294, valid 15 September 2568 to 14 September 2573, issued by the Lampang Provincial Industry Office) and a limited partnership in Mueang Nan district, Nan (certificate 578-1/294, valid 17 June 2567 to 16 June 2570, issued by the Nan Provincial Industry Office). Against the fish standard it returns one community enterprise in Rong Kwang district, Phrae, and against the 2568 chicken standard one individual producer in Phu Phiang district, Nan, certified for a black-chicken sai ua
Primary and official sources are cited above. Government rules, fees and procedures in Thailand change over time and vary by office; always confirm current requirements with the relevant authority before relying on them. BAANLYY never takes paid placement in editorial content.
