Industry News

As demand for olive oil falls and prices follow suit, the European Commission is intervening to ensure beleaguered producers tender for aid so they can store their surplus. Brussels announced recently that it will provide private storage aid enabling up to 100,000 tonnes of Spanish virgin olive oil to be stored for six months.

The latest edition of Australian & New Zealand Olivegrower & Processor hit letterboxes this week, bringing readers the latest in olive industry news and information. Along with updates on the new Australian Standard and the Olive Levy Proposal, there’s more local and international news, information on plant sanitation and resistant cultivars, an explanation of current lab tests and what they mean, and a practical guide to DIY grafting.

Hawke’s Bay producer Matapiro Olives has taken the coveted title of Supreme Champion and the Logan Campbell Trophy at this year’s Royal Easter Show Olive Oil Awards. In a clean sweep, Matapiro also took top awards in all three major oil classes: Delicate, Medium and Intense. We’ll bring you further results and more about their win in the November-December edition of Olivegrower & Processor.

A group of 13 academics has slammed the EU nutrition and health claims legislation (NHCR) for its ‘evidence-based medicinal’ approach that rules out what they consider perfectly valid nutritional science. Using examples including antioxidents, they argue that the medicinal approach is failing to acknowledge statistically significant nutritional science and that ‘There is a need to translate the impact of nutrition on health and wellness into a framework of biomarkers and physiologic responses sufficient to quantify and substantiate these relations for the maintenance of a beneficial body function.”

The heart health market is set for a new entrant as Frutarom USA announces the launch of an olive leaf extract with reported blood pressure benefits. The ingredient is described as water-soluble for use in still or carbonated beverages, and is also stable in film-coated tablets, and is backed up by data in the scientific literature. Sales of US heart health ingredients (wholesale) topped $563m in 2008 and are predicted to exceed $1bn by 2012, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of 20%.

Research has called into question the role of plant polyphenols in cardiovascular health, by finding that their supposed anti-platelet activities are only relevant at high, and physiologically unattainable, concentrations. Writing in Molecular Nutrition & Food Research, researchers from the UK reported that only high concentrations – more than 50mmol/litre – in blood had anti-platelet effects in vitro and that, because such concentrations are unlikely to be attained in circulation, “It is doubtful whether consumption of dietary phenolics in nutritionally attainable amounts plays a major role in the inhibition of platelet activation and aggregation in humans”.

Spain’s olive oil producers need to adapt production to reflect the reality of worldwide demand – or face further losses, warns International Olive Oil Council deputy director Ammir Assabah. “The situation is not easy, unfortunately not just for Spain but for many other countries too,” Assabah told reporters. “Many countries have stocks and find themselves in a difficult situation. The important thing is to create value-added, particularly to improve product quality, to gain market positioning and to make adjustments so that supply matches demand. These are measures countries can take in the light of the data released by the IOC.”