`Encouraging Signs for Greek Olive Oil - Olive Oil Times
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Encouraging Signs for Greek Olive Oil

By Costas Vasilopoulos
Mar. 13, 2013 05:00 UTC

After promis­ing reports of increased Greek olive oil sales to Germany and China the past 12 months when exports shot up 24 per­cent and 68 per­cent, respec­tively, the Greek Ministry of Agriculture now antic­i­pates exports to Europe and over­seas will fur­ther rise in 2013. The opti­mism is partly fueled by the newly adopted European reg­u­la­tion deter­min­ing that cer­tain olive oils can bear the sign​“Olive oil polyphe­nols con­tribute to the pro­tec­tion of blood lipids from oxida­tive stress.”

Greek olive oil, usu­ally made with Koroneiki olives, is par­tic­u­larly rich in polyphe­nols, and many olive oil asso­ci­a­tions and inde­pen­dent pro­duc­ers have con­tacted the min­istry to have their prod­ucts tested and there­after per­mit­ted to bear the cov­eted inscrip­tion.

The reg­u­la­tion is strict, allow­ing this dis­tinc­tion only for olive oils con­tain­ing at least 5mg of hydrox­y­ty­rosol per 20g of oil, but if the pre­req­ui­sites are ful­filled, oppor­tu­ni­ties for increased exports and bet­ter prices for Greek olive oil could make the extra effort worth­while.

Moreover, the min­istry con­tem­plates launch­ing a spe­cial web­site tar­get­ing for­eign mar­kets in order to presents all the char­ac­ter­is­tics of Greek olive oil. An olive oil ​‘Atlas’ is also on the way, list­ing every olive oil of Greece labeled as PDO (Protected Designation of Origin), and a descrip­tion of their qual­i­ties.

Greek olive oil pro­duc­ers are hope­ful, if these new tools are prop­erly used and the new oppor­tu­ni­ties are fully exploited, there could be a sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment in Greek olive oil exports.


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