`European Exporters Ask Taiwan to Stop Shunning Their Olive Pomace Oil - Olive Oil Times
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Asia

European Exporters Ask Taiwan to Stop Shunning Their Olive Pomace Oil

By Julie Butler
Jan. 27, 2014 11:44 UTC
Port of Kaohsiung

Taiwan’s Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) met with a European del­e­ga­tion in Taipei today over its con­tin­u­ing refusal of cer­tain ship­ments of olive pomace oil on the grounds they con­tain a green col­orant.

Olive Oil Times has been told that the del­e­ga­tion included experts in olive oil chem­istry from Italy and Spain as well as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the European Commission but no infor­ma­tion was released on the meet­ing out­come.

ASSITOL EXPLAINS: Letter from Assitol con­cern­ing Taiwan’s refusal of olive pomace oil ship­ments

Sources say they planned to present research to the TFDA to back their claim that a test it is using could be pro­duc­ing false pos­i­tives for the addi­tive — cop­per chloro­phyll — in the case of olive pomace and grape­seed oils.

Taiwan is tak­ing a hard-line stance on import test­ing in the wake of a wider food scan­dal, one aspect of which involved rev­e­la­tions of cheaper cot­ton­seed oil being ​“greened up” with the col­orant and sold as olive oil to Taiwanese con­sumers.

But as pre­vi­ously reported, some Spanish and Italian edi­ble oil experts have warned that a low level of cop­per chloro­phyll can occur nat­u­rally in olive pomace oil and grape­seed oils and cause a pos­i­tive result in tests for the non-statu­tory col­orant.

Italy’s pow­er­ful olive oil trade asso­ci­a­tion, Assitol, told Olive Oil Times ear­lier this month it was seek­ing a meet­ing with the TFDA to dis­cuss the issue. And the International Olive Council (IOC) said its group of chem­istry experts was research­ing the mat­ter and had asked Taiwan for all rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion.

Since December 25, the TFDA has pub­lished at least seven notices about the refusal of oil ship­ments on the grounds they tested pos­i­tive for cop­per chloro­phyll:

- January 22: two notices regard­ing olive pomace oil from Italian com­pany Olearia Clemente SRL, one regard­ing refusal of a ship­ment of more than 700 1L bot­tles (a total of nearly 660kg) and another for 320 5L tins (1,465 kg);

- January 15: three refusal notices, the biggest affected ship­ment being 6,000kg from Spain’s Vidoria SL, and the oth­ers from the Italian com­pa­nies Santagata Luigi SRL, for 2,160kg of olive pomace oil, and Erregi SRL, for 55kg of Castello brand extra vir­gin olive oil bot­tles;

- January 2: 16,708kg olive pomace oil from Italy’s Olitalia SRL;

- December 25: 8,000 kg olive pomace oil again from Spain’s Vidoria SL.

In the last month, a Thai fish sauce and Korean choco­lates were among other imports refused over use of non-statu­tory col­orants. The TFDA has also recently refused var­i­ous foods over irreg­u­lar­i­ties detected in pes­ti­cide residue lev­els, includ­ing Indian sesame seeds; Thai chili pow­der; Japanese straw­ber­ries, grapes and sat­suma man­darins, and Chilean cher­ries.

Olive pomace oil is made from the residue left after pro­duc­ing vir­gin olive oil and is used widely in the food ser­vice and food pro­duc­tion sec­tors. According to the IOC, world imports of olive pomace oil totaled 53,500 tons in 2012/13. Taiwan accounted for just 504 tons — less than 1 per­cent — but there are fears the scan­dal there could affect more impor­tant mar­kets, such as the United States, which took 10,621 tons — just under a fifth of the total — and is the world’s biggest olive pomace oil importer.

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