It's on newsstands online "The Lifesaver" which, in its latest issue, released today, provides names and surnames of 20 samples of extra virgin olive oil purchased on 6 February in supermarkets or discount stores of Rome and be analyzed. These are EU oils and, in one case, a blend of EU and non-EU oils. The results, in line with other surveys conducted by the same journal, show that – for 11 cases, of which 6 are private labels, i.e. branded by the supermarket or discount store – the content is actually to be considered as simple virgin oil. Reducing the classification category was theCustoms and Monopolies Agency of Rome to which the magazine sent the samples for the organoleptic test of the panel test, ie the sensory analysis required by law to classify an oil (in compliance with the legal limits, however, the chemical parameters).
If, from a nutritional point of view, these results do not cause any risk for the consumer because in any case theoil is perfectly edible, the question is relevant for the economic aspect, because obviously they were sold as extra virgin olive oils, and therefore ad a higher price than virgins (a price that Il Salvagente estimates around +20/30%).
The purchase of the oils in the sales points – recalls Il Salvagente – took place by taking several bottles of the same lot from the shelves, being careful to choose those with the furthest expiry date and which were far from a heat source. Analyzes have shown heating/sludge defects in 2 samples (oil obtained from olives piled up with a degree of fermentation or oil where fermentation reactions have taken place due to the presence of small impurities), rancid in 5 bottles (oil that has undergone an intense oxidative process) e mould/moisture in 4 oils (characteristic defect of the oil produced from fruits in which abundant fungi and yeasts have developed due to being piled up for many days and in humid environments).
The magazine has also successfully published company responses on the critical points identified, which are essentially based on the fact that their lot was extra virgin once bottled, also from an organoleptic point of view, declining any responsibility for how it was then stored and displayed on the shelves.
Where is the reason? Are they oils that were at the limits of the extra virgin classification when they were bottled or oils that were badly stored on the shelves?
The Olive News – which is a newspaper of information and not of opinion – does not go too far, having adopted the words of a father of journalism like Sergio Lepri: “Dear journalist, leave your opinions to the readers, just tell the facts. Because the reader is not a fool and is able to form an opinion on his own without you imposing yours on him".
We can then report two objective data useful to help this opinion: one related to a market analysisrecently made by Italy Olive growing, which highlighted how the brake on the low prices of extra virgin olive oil in supermarkets and discount stores - generally based on EU or non-EU oils - has slowed down this type of sales (and therefore with a greater presence of these bottles on the shelves); the other of science, from Maurice Servili of the University of Perugia, whose studies have led to the result that an extra virgin olive oil, even if packaged in a dark green glass bottle, just 5 months of exposure to the light of a supermarket shelf is enough to be harmed by photo-oxidation and thus change the flavor, progressively losing not only the health properties, but also i requirements to be classified as extra virgin.
Interesting, in conclusion, what was declared by Gennaro Sicolo, President of Italy Olive growing al Salvagente: “At the International Olive Council we are working to give new rules to the sector. The 18-month deadline for an extra virgin olive oil they can no longer start from bottling but from the date of harvestotherwise the organoleptic qualities of a live food such as oil are necessarily compromised. When the oils are bottled they are compliant, the problem is the way they are kept on the shelves and the purchase conditions imposed by the large-scale distribution”.
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