`EU Codifies Marketing Standards for Olive Oil - Olive Oil Times
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EU Codifies Marketing Standards for Olive Oil

By Julie Butler
Jan. 18, 2012 19:35 UTC

In the inter­ests of ​“clar­ity and ratio­nal­ity,” the European Union has pub­lished an updated ver­sion of its reg­u­la­tion on mar­ket­ing stan­dards for olive oil.

EU No 29/2012, dated 13 January 2012, cod­i­fies the sub­stan­tial amend­ments that have taken place since reg­u­la­tion 1019 on olive oil mar­ket­ing stan­dards was intro­duced in 2002.

It’s under­stood that the reg­u­la­tion — largely devoted to label­ing require­ments designed to pro­tect and inform con­sumers — goes no fur­ther than pro­vid­ing a clean copy of the rules as amended and intro­duces no new pro­vi­sions.

Geographical indi­ca­tions

New claims of mis­la­bel­ing involv­ing ​‘Made in Italy’ olive oil have recently put the issue of ori­gins back in the spot­light. Coldiretti, one of Italy’s main agri­cul­tural orga­ni­za­tions, says it found in a sur­vey that four in five bot­tles of extra vir­gin olive oil on sale in Italy con­tain mix­tures of oils from other coun­tries but con­sumers often need a mag­ni­fy­ing glass to read this on the label.

The EU reg­u­la­tion makes clear that in the case of blends of extra vir­gin or vir­gin olive oils orig­i­nat­ing from more than one EU mem­ber state or non-EU coun­try, the label should describe the des­ig­na­tion of ori­gin using one of the fol­low­ing men­tions, as appro­pri­ate:

(i) ​‘blend of olive oils of European Union ori­gin’ or a ref­er­ence to the Union;

(ii) ​‘blend of olive oils not of European Union ori­gin’ or a ref­er­ence to ori­gin out­side the Union;

(iii) ​‘blend of olive oils of European Union ori­gin and not of European Union ori­gin’ or a ref­er­ence to ori­gin within the Union and out­side the Union.

In the case of vir­gin or extra vir­gin olive oil extracted in a mill located in an EU mem­ber state or non-EU coun­try other than that where the olives were har­vested, the des­ig­na­tion of ori­gin must con­tain the fol­low­ing words: “(extra) vir­gin olive oil obtained in (the Union or the name of the Member State con­cerned) from olives har­vested in (the Union or the name of the Member State or third coun­try con­cerned)”.

Pomace and other olive oil cat­e­gories

In the case of olive-pomace oil, the reg­u­la­tion requires labels to bear, in clear and indeli­ble let­ters, the fol­low­ing cat­e­gory infor­ma­tion: ​‘oil com­pris­ing exclu­sively oils obtained by treat­ing the prod­uct obtained after the extrac­tion of olive oil and oils obtained directly from olives’, or ​‘oil com­pris­ing exclu­sively oils obtained by pro­cess­ing olive pomace and oils obtained directly from olives’.

In the case of olive oil the label must say: ​‘oil com­pris­ing exclu­sively olive oils that have under­gone refin­ing and oils obtained directly from olives’.

For vir­gin olive oil it’s: ​‘olive oil obtained directly from olives and solely by mech­anical means’.

And in the case of extra vir­gin olive oil: ​‘supe­rior cat­e­gory olive oil obtained directly from olives and solely by mechan­i­cal means’.


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