International News/Trends

Beefed up testing, better classification of olive oil and reaching out to non-EU producers are among a package of measures promised by European Commissioner for Agriculture Dacian Cioloş after meeting in Córdoba this week with members of Spain’s olive oil sector including its Interprofesional del Aceite de Oliva Español (Interprofessional).

The Fifth Greek Olive Oil and Olive Festival took place in Athens in April. The event attracted consumers as well as those involved in the olive and olive oil industries; Participants received up-to-date information in the field of production, legislation and promotion of olive oil and olives. Of particular interest was the educational session presenting new marketing concepts for Greek olive oil producers. Speakers discussed the importance of a new approach to this age-old product of Greece.

The Tel Aviv District Court has ruled that Tit Bit Food Industries, which manufactures the iconic Izhar olive oil brand, will go into receivership. The company owes NIS 170 million to seven banks. The petition for receivership revealed that the company’s financial difficulties date back a decade, and that in 2002 the banks and the firm agreed on terms for the repayment of the debt. In 2010, however, the company’s finances took a turn for the worse and it found itself unable to pay creditors.

Driven by rising consumer demand for olive oil, growers are buying land for olives or adding olive acreage at a swift pace — allowing them to diversify with a crop that uses relatively little water and thrives in low-quality soil. The California Olive Oil Council estimates that 5,000 new acres will be planted each year in California through 2020. It estimates olive oil production will hit 2 million gallons for this year’s crop, up from 1.4 million gallons for 2011-2012.

Further safeguarding olive biodiversity by setting up the world’s third olive germplasm bank – in Izmir, Turkey – was at the top of the agenda for a meeting at the International Olive Council’s Madrid headquarters on April 13. The creation of a collection at sufficient distance from the existing ones in Marrakesh, Morocco, and Córdoba, Spain, is seen as prudent to help ensure plant survival in the event of loss, such as due to natural catastrophes and disease.

Testing by a NSW laboratory has found some bottles of extra virgin olive oil, sold in US supermarkets, are in fact half canola oil. Adjunct Professor with Australian Oils Research, Rod Mailer, says the testing had to be done at Wagga Wagga because the US didn’t have the right equipment. He says Australia has seen very similar contamination in olive oil imported from Europe. Dr Mailer says that, in two tests, the laboratory found up to 75% of the oil sent from the US would not have passed IOC standards.

Spanish researchers have developed a cheap, portable ‘electronic nose’ they say has great promise for use in organoleptic testing and food quality control. While so-called e-noses themselves are not new, the University of Extremadura Sensory Systems Research Group says its system reduces the time and cost of testing. In a recent press release, researcher Jesus Lozano said that the new system – which mimics the human nose – could not only deliver quantitative results in a minute, it cost ten times less than existing methods to set up.

In a breakthrough, scientists have claimed successful cultivation of olive trees, a prized Mediterranean produce, for the first time in Kashmir, owing to favorable weather conditions there. Scientists and researchers at Central Institute of Temperate Horticulture (CITH) have grown olive trees in its farms, where the project to study the behavior of olive trees in the local climatic conditions has been underway since 2008.