`4th 'Extrascape' to Focus on Innovation - Olive Oil Times
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4th 'Extrascape' to Focus on Innovation

By Luciana Squadrilli
May. 14, 2015 12:43 UTC

On June 5 and 6 the small vil­lage of San Martino in Pensilis (in the Molise region) will host the 4th edi­tion of Extrascape, an inter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tion for the best extra vir­gin olive oil and olive grow­ing land­scape.

Extrascape was launched in 2012 and is pro­moted by the MolisExtra Association and the Municipality of San Martino in Pensilis with the patron­age of the pres­i­dent of the Molise Region and of the Department of Agriculture and Forestry of Molise Region. Besides reward­ing the best extra vir­gin olive oils, the event aims to reward the qual­ity of the related land­scape. Bearing in mind that those who tend the land and pro­duce extra vir­gin olive oil, and the land itself where the olive groves blos­som and grow, share the same, fun­da­men­tal impor­tance for the qual­ity of the pro­duce and for the safe­keep­ing and care of the ter­ri­tory.

While con­tin­u­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Research Landscape Unit of the Department of Architecture and Design of University ​“La Sapienza” of Rome led by prof. Achille Ippolito, this year Extrascape will also focus on the impor­tance of inno­v­a­tive tools and strate­gies to pro­mote the cul­ture extra vir­gin olive oil.

The com­pe­ti­tion will fol­low the rules already estab­lished in pre­vi­ous edi­tions: the tast­ing panel will eval­u­ate the extra vir­gin olive oils on the base of the meth­ods of the International Olive Council, while the jury made up by University’s experts will judge the qual­ity of the land­scapes through pic­tures and other sub­mit­ted data.

The over­all score will yield the final win­ners for the tra­di­tional and inno­v­a­tive land­scapes as well as for the dif­fer­ent extra vir­gin cat­e­gories.

Due to the unlucky har­vest of 2014, this year the norms of the reg­u­la­tion were waived: the farms and com­pa­nies which were not able to pro­duce any oil will have the chance to enter in the land­scape sec­tion only.

But the main dif­fer­ence from the pre­vi­ous edi­tion will be in the con­fer­ence’s pro­gram that will unroll along­side the com­pe­ti­tion: while in the past years the grad­u­ate stu­dents of the inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Ph.D in Environment and Landscape Planning and Management pre­sented their projects about olive grow­ing land­scapes, this year the main focus of the con­fer­ence will be on inno­va­tion in mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. The two-day con­fer­ence will host talks by Italian and inter­na­tional experts.

On the first day, beside prof. Ippolito’s talk on how to man­age land­scapes, a Japanese taster Himeyo Nagatomo will talk about how Japanese con­sumers per­ceive Italian extra vir­gin olive oil qual­ity; Antonio Tombolini, CEO at Simplicissimus Book Farm, will draw a pos­si­ble future sce­nario for authen­tic food and the extra vir­gin olive oil mar­ket.

Technology will be another key point of dis­cus­sion: Vincenzo Nardelli, a young mar­ket­ing and web con­sul­tant, will explain how the web and the dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies can help com­mu­ni­cate authen­tic extra vir­gin olive oil, while engi­neer Paolo Mario Cipriani — co-founder at OREV with Pietro Bozzelli — will intro­duce the OREV patent, a down­load­able app which is able to detect coun­ter­feited extra vir­gin olive oil through a microchip.

Differently from the QRCode, the OREV microchip can’t be repli­cated. This means every bot­tle will bear its unique and trace­able set of infor­ma­tion guar­an­tee­ing on the oils’ authen­tic­ity.
To demo the app capa­bil­i­ties, Extrascape will dis­play a model — ​“super­mar­ket shelf of the future” — where vis­i­tors will be able to check the prod­ucts’ pro­file by sim­ply approach­ing the bot­tles with their mobile phones.

On the sec­ond day of the event there will be more talks ded­i­cated to olive oil’s pro­mo­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion coor­di­nated by Alberto Grimelli, direc­tor at Teatro Naturale, includ­ing Colomba Mongiello, vice pres­i­dent of the Parliamentary Anti-Counterfeiting Committee. The day will con­clude with the award cer­e­mony, but Extrascape will have a fol­low-up in Milan July 7 – 11, when it will be pre­sented at the Expo 2015 Best Practices week.

Francesco Travaglini, pres­i­dent of the MolisExtra asso­ci­a­tion and cre­ator of Extrascape, said, ​“We want to find a new approach towards the con­sumer. The sec­ond day of the con­fer­ence, in par­tic­u­lar, will be aimed at this. We strongly believe that edu­cat­ing and inform­ing the con­sumer is a cru­cial step. Technology also is very impor­tant, and the OREV patent will help us a lot to dis­cuss the most rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion we need to give to peo­ple inter­ested in extra vir­gin olive oil.”


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