“A door has been opened, an important problem has been solved relating to extra virgin olive oils obtained from Nocellara del Belice but, at the same time, the foundations have been laid to solve, in the short term, also the problem of extra virgin olive oils from monocultivar Coratina”.
Il prof. Maurice Servili look at the glass half full after the meeting Technical Committee of the International Olive Council (IOC) which proposed to set a 800 mg / kg the minimum content of total sterols, for koroneiki e Nocellara from Belize, associating the batch of oil with documents certifying its varietal origin, “freeing them” so from the threshold of 1.000 mg/kg, established today by law to consider virgin and refined oils obtained from the olive fruit as genuine. A threshold that, as is known, was set more than thirty years ago to combat fraud from the addition of high oleic desterolized seed oils to olive oil, but which clashes, as far as extra virgin oils are concerned, with the varietal characteristics, given that some olive cultivars do not genetically reach this minimum level of total sterols. Like Coratina, which generally stands at values varying between 900 and 950 mg/kg (but also the less widespread Biancolilla).
Olivo News had taken an interest in the case two weeks ago, after the news arrived from Greece that Koroneiki and Nocellara del Belice had passed the three years of tests required in laboratories accredited by the COI. Good news for the Greek olive-oil sector (with a lot of emphasis in relaunching the news) and for some Sicilian producers, but in some ways reductive for the Italian oil sector which has one of its prevalent varieties in Coratina.
Let's be clear, in domestic trade this is objectively an issue that has never created any problems so far. More "unfriendly" the situation for those who, like some producers and/or packaging oil industries, trade extensively abroad and find themselves facing this obstacle in the control phase, with the consequence of a risk of depreciation of the value of Coratina oil which then has a cascade effect on the entire supply chain involved.
In fact the article de The Olive News It helped bring attention back to the issue, encouraging people to become aware that there is a moving train that is important to get on.
“In the meeting of the Committee – clarifies Servili – it was noted that for the Coratina the results of two years had been produced. The choice to carry out a third year of tests was therefore shared so as to put the technicians of the Committee itself in a position to be able to express themselves in the future".
Therefore, if the clearance from the plenary meeting of the COI in November arrives for Koroneiki and Nocellara del Belice and the threshold of 800 mg/kg will be effective starting from the 2025/2026 olive oil campaign, it is likely that the same administrative procedure will be followed by Coratina, with a one-year delay, and therefore valid for the 2026/2027 campaign.
“I am satisfied with the result obtained – Servili concluded – although, personally I continue to believe that the best way forward would have been to lower the limit of total sterols to 800 mg/kg for the commercial category of extra virgin. This is in light of the fact that the results of the three-year experiment correctly conducted by the IOC have clearly demonstrated that the limit of 1000 mg/kg for total sterols, as a parameter of purity, was set without being aware of its real content in some important Mediterranean extra virgin olive oils, linked to the cultivar, fruit ripening and agronomic production variables”.
