`Europe Grants PDO Status to Turkey's Çizik Zeytini Table Olives - Olive Oil Times
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Europe Grants PDO Status to Turkey's Çizik Zeytini Table Olives

By Costas Vasilopoulos
Jan. 3, 2024 16:37 UTC

Çizik Zeytini table olives from Turkey have received a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the European Commission.

The Turkish olives were added to the European Union’s geo­graph­i­cal indi­ca­tions (GIs) reg­is­ter under the name Edremit Körfezi Yeşil Çizik Zeytini (Edremit Bay Green Scratched Olives) on December 4th after the appli­ca­tion was sub­mit­ted to the European Commission in April 2018.

Çizik olives are cylin­dri­cal, medium-sized fruit of the pop­u­lar Turkish Edremit cul­ti­var (also known as Ayvalik) from trees grown in five dis­tricts in Turkey’s Edremit Gulf region in the north­east­ern Aegean Sea.

See Also:Traditional Turkish Olive Cultivation Practices Recognized by UNESCO

According to the appli­ca­tion, the typ­i­cal Mediterranean cli­mate in Edremit Gulf, with mild win­ters and hot sum­mers, com­bined with the area’s geo­log­i­cal fea­tures, has led to the for­ma­tion of deep, alka­line soils rich in plant nutri­ents and suit­able for olive tree grow­ing.

“We are very happy that the appli­ca­tion we made in 2018 was suc­cess­ful and Edremit received the E.U. geo­graph­i­cal indi­ca­tion for the sec­ond time,” said Ahmet Çetin, pres­i­dent of the Edremit Chamber of Commerce, which car­ried out the appli­ca­tion process.

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Selman Hasan Arslan, the Mayor of Edremit Municipality

“I believe that the recog­ni­tion of our olives in Europe will increase,” he added. ​“I hope it will be ben­e­fi­cial to our pro­duc­ers, indus­tri­al­ists and con­sumers in Turkey.”

Last July, the area’s extra vir­gin olive oil also received a PDO cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the E.U.

After the har­vest, Çizik olives are scratched and undergo a process of nat­ural fer­men­ta­tion of at least six months to dis­card most of their bit­ter oleu­ropein and become edi­ble.

Protected Designation of Origin (PDO)

A Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) is a type of geo­graph­i­cal indi­ca­tion (GI) that iden­ti­fies a prod­uct as orig­i­nat­ing from a spe­cific geo­graph­i­cal area and hav­ing qual­i­ties or char­ac­ter­is­tics that are essen­tially attrib­ut­able to its geo­graph­i­cal ori­gin. The PDO des­ig­na­tion is a legal label that is used to pro­tect the names of prod­ucts that are truly unique to a par­tic­u­lar region.

Oleuropein is only one phe­no­lic com­pound con­tained in olives and the most com­mon dur­ing har­vest time.

A cer­tain degree of bit­ter­ness remains in the fer­mented Çizik olives as a sign of authen­tic­ity and fresh­ness. Tastes of thyme, bit­ter almond, arti­choke and lemon rind char­ac­ter­ize Çizik olives, while their aroma is rem­i­nis­cent of the scent of spring flow­ers.

Olive grow­ers and pro­duc­ers based in the Edremit Gulf region also wel­comed the GI recog­ni­tion, stress­ing the impor­tance of a European qual­ity label for gain­ing recog­ni­tion in global mar­kets.

“E.U. reg­is­tra­tion is a proud devel­op­ment,” said local pro­ducer Nermin Gökduman. ​“It is very valu­able to intro­duce our coun­try’s val­ues​to the world through a geo­graph­i­cal indi­ca­tion. I believe both the recog­ni­tion and sales of our green scratched olives will increase, just like our Edremit olive oil.”

Çizik table olives, along with Milas Yağlı and Gemlik olives, are the three table olive vari­eties grown in dif­fer­ent olive-pro­duc­ing regions of Turkey, which carry the European PDO label, sig­nal­ing their qual­ity and ori­gin to con­sumers.

Another three Turkish table olive vari­eties (Aydin Memecik, Milas Çekişke and Tarsus Sarıulak) are await­ing approval from the com­mis­sion to reg­is­ter as PDOs.

Non-European prod­uct names can reg­is­ter as GIs through a bilat­eral or regional agree­ment between their coun­try of ori­gin and the European Union.

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