The Codex Alimentarius Austriacus was first established in 1891 with the work of the austrian trade commission of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire as a collection of standards and descriptions for a wide variety of foods and food products.

The Codex, consisting of three volumes, was finished in 1910-1917 by O. Dafert and lacked actual integration in the austrian law until 1975. However, it was commonly used as a reference by many courts to determine the identity and quality of specific foods.

To that time, it was an exemplary work about food, and as such it became the model for the later Codex Alimentarius Europeaus which again was the precursor of the Codex Alimentarius, the latter being the current international food codex collaboratively worked out by the FAO and the WHO.

In 1975, the committee for the Codex Alimentarius Austriacus was reorganised within the austrian food law, which is still known as one of the strictest food laws in the world.