Italy Mints Special Labels for Its PDO and PGI Olive Oils

As part of a plan to imple­ment secu­rity and trace­abil­ity solu­tions for the agri-food sec­tor, the Italian Polygraphic Institute and State Mint (IPZS, for its Italian ini­tials) has launched a label devel­oped explic­itly for the extra vir­gin olive oil with Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) cer­ti­fi­ca­tions.

The label, fea­tur­ing exclu­sive graph­ics and advanced secu­rity ele­ments, is designed to be affixed to the bot­tle’s cap or can­is­ter. It is uniquely num­bered and includes a QR code to access a plat­form with infor­ma­tion on the prod­uct and the pro­ducer.

The con­sor­tium for pro­tect­ing the PGI Olio di Roma was the first to adopt the label right after its estab­lish­ment, fol­lowed this year by the PDO Olio Sabina, PGI Olio di Calabria and PDO Olio Terre di Siena con­sor­tia.

Olive Oil Times vis­ited the Officina Carte Valori, the secu­rity print­ing facil­ity in Rome where the labels are man­u­fac­tured. It is located on Via Salaria, the largest of the four IPZS facil­i­ties, with 569 staff mem­bers and 15 pro­duc­tion depart­ments.

“Here, the Polygraphic Institute man­u­fac­tures all the trace­abil­ity prod­ucts, while the prod­ucts for the citizen’s phys­i­cal and dig­i­tal iden­tity are made in a nearby build­ing,” said Matteo Cerasoli, the man­ager of the secu­rity print­ing works, while intro­duc­ing the visit and after pass­ing through the first secu­rity check.

The plant also man­u­fac­tures labels for goods cov­ered by the state monop­oly, includ­ing tobacco, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal labels, rev­enue stamps and non-trace­abil­ity num­bered prod­ucts such as lot­tery tick­ets. Moreover, a sec­tion is ded­i­cated to the print­ing of stamps and the Official Journal.

In line with the strict secu­rity stan­dards that reg­u­late access to all the IPZS facil­i­ties, the entrance to the high-secu­rity print­ing area is guarded by the Finance Police, and only autho­rized per­son­nel can enter the var­i­ous depart­ments by pass­ing through inter­lock­ing doors.

“Like all the other trace­abil­ity prod­ucts, the label for the PDO and PGI extra vir­gin olive oil has secu­rity fea­tures sim­i­lar to those we find in iden­tity doc­u­ments such as pass­ports and iden­tity cards, as well as in ban­knotes,” Cerasoli said.

As one approaches where the labels are pro­duced, the sound of machin­ery work­ing at full capac­ity can be heard. During the Olive Oil Times visit, the IPZS tech­ni­cians set up the machine that prints the labels arranged in reels.

“All the equip­ment is designed exclu­sively for the Polygraphic Institute,” Cerasoli said. ​“This machine has a core con­sist­ing in a mul­ti­plic­ity of con­trol sys­tems, which cer­tify 100 per­cent of the pro­duc­tion.”

“We cer­tify the prod­ucts by check­ing every vis­i­ble and invis­i­ble secu­rity fea­ture,” he added. ​“We can say that the phys­i­cal secu­rity prod­ucts have two worlds, a vis­i­ble one and an invis­i­ble one that enhances the pro­tec­tion.”

After they are printed, the labels des­tined for the agri-food sec­tor, includ­ing those for the PDO and PGI extra vir­gin olive oil, go to the vari­able data depart­ment to be num­bered.

“This depart­ment car­ries out a task of sig­nif­i­cant com­plex­ity,” Cerasoli said. ​“In sim­ple terms, each label is num­bered with an alphanu­meric code com­bined with a ran­dom con­trol code gen­er­ated by a pro­pri­etary algo­rithm, which allows us to obtain unique labels.”

Special cam­eras then check for the pres­ence, read­abil­ity and qual­ity of both codes on each label so the con­trol bod­ies can ver­ify the pro­duc­t’s authen­tic­ity. Furthermore, they check the QR code to ensure it is fully com­pli­ant with the sector’s ISO (qual­ity require­ments) and can be read unam­bigu­ously by the users’ devices.

“We essen­tially started from our expe­ri­ence with wine,” said Annalisa Griffo, head of the agri-food unit. ​“We have pro­duced labels for DOCG and DOC wines for over a decade. We should con­sider that the label for DOCG wines is manda­tory, while that for DOC wines is vol­un­tary.”

“Yet, over the years, we have seen an ever-grow­ing num­ber of pro­duc­ers and con­sor­tia choose to adopt the lat­ter,” she added. ​“We pro­duce two bil­lion wine labels annu­ally, of which 1.5 bil­lion are DOC. This rep­re­sented a strong point for extend­ing this solu­tion to the PDO and PGI agri-food prod­ucts.”

At the fol­low­ing machine, which processes the printed paper, the IPZS tech­ni­cians fin­ish pro­cess­ing a reel.

The reels are pro­duced under safety print­ing pro­ce­dures in the IPZS facil­ity in Foggia, then accounted for and trans­ferred to Rome.

“Each depart­ment in this area is equipped with a vault to store the reels arriv­ing from the pre­vi­ous pro­cess­ing area,” Cerasoli said, point­ing out that a report is done at the end of each stage of the pro­duc­tion process.

“At each stage, both the good and the waste prod­ucts are accounted for, counted by piece and weighed,” he added. ​“In essence, we keep records of the his­tory of each reel and the labels that com­pose it along the entire pro­duc­tion process, whose man­age­ment is cru­cial.”

Once IPZS tech­ni­cians fin­ished pro­cess­ing a reel, Olive Oil Times exam­ined it and closely observed the labels’ phys­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics.

“Each label is char­ac­ter­ized by a series of phys­i­cal ele­ments, namely the water­mark fea­tur­ing a spe­cific design, along with vis­i­ble and invis­i­ble fib­rils,” Cerasoli said. ​“Also, there is a secu­rity print, and there­fore, it is impos­si­ble to pho­to­copy or fal­sify it.”

“If we look with a mag­ni­fier, we can see micro-writ­ing that reports dif­fer­ent word­ings with a res­o­lu­tion that makes them detectable only with spe­cial sys­tems,” he added. ​“This is the vis­i­ble part of the prod­uct, com­ple­mented by an invis­i­ble part behind it, as we said ear­lier. Some fib­rils become flu­o­res­cent, and the secu­rity print­ing com­prises dif­fer­ent inks. In addi­tion, there is a secu­rity fea­ture that we are not allowed to reveal.”

The other IPZS labels dif­fer from them in that they have cus­tomized graph­ics. The PDO and PGI extra vir­gin olive oil con­sor­tia can per­son­al­ize the labels with their logos and col­ors.

“All this stems from the need to pro­tect the high-qual­ity prod­ucts, their authen­tic­ity, and the true ​‘Made in Italy,’” Griffo said. ​“The Italian agri-food sec­tor is among the most appre­ci­ated and rec­og­nized in the world, and for this rea­son also one of the most imi­tated.”

She men­tioned a recent report by the Italian Quality Control and Fraud Repression Institute, accord­ing to which the value of coun­ter­feit agri-food Italian prod­ucts in 2023 amounted to over €42 mil­lion, of which 33 per­cent were coun­ter­feit PDO and PGI prod­ucts.

“We believe that it is very impor­tant to cre­ate a strong iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the prod­uct also to coun­ter­act the ​‘Italian sound­ing’ fraud, which has very high fig­ures,” Griffo said. ​“Every year Italian pro­duc­ers lose almost €100 bil­lion in export sales due to this trick, which involves evok­ing ​‘Italianness’ through the country’s col­ors, words and sym­bols.”

“PDOs and PGIs are not only ​‘Made in Italy’ but also cer­ti­fied prod­ucts that go through a fur­ther cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and con­trol process,” she observed. ​“Counterfeiting results in rep­u­ta­tional dam­age, a loss of income, and, not sec­ondary, a risk of harm to health. Therefore, this is impor­tant to pro­tect the prod­ucts, the pro­ducer and the con­sumers.”

Protecting pub­lic trust and health is one of the IPZS’s core val­ues. The label aims to fur­ther guar­an­tee con­sumers’ qual­ity while safe­guard­ing authen­tic and healthy prod­ucts.

Moreover, the QR code printed on each label gives access to the IPZS plat­form ded­i­cated to the dig­i­tal pass­port of the prod­ucts, Pass it. Here, the con­sumers can ver­ify the authen­tic­ity and trace­abil­ity of the prod­ucts and find a show­case.

“In addi­tion to dis­play­ing all the steps of the pro­duc­tion process, the plat­form gives infor­ma­tion pro­vided by the farm­ers, like events, oleo­tourism and wine tourism tours, recipes and pair­ings, and more,” Griffo added. ​“It is intended to be a true com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nel between pro­duc­ers and con­sumers.”

The visit ended with a final secu­rity check, while the pro­duc­tion activ­ity at the secu­rity print­ing works con­tin­ued at full speed.

Label pro­duc­tion for the PDO and PGI extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duced in the regions of Lazio, Tuscany and Calabria is now under­way, par­al­lel to the olive har­vest.