Row in Spain Over Tasting Panels Heats Up

Members of agri­cul­tural asso­ci­a­tions, olive oil pro­duc­ers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Spanish Association of Municipalities of Olive Oil (AEMO) gath­ered in Jaén — the heart of Spanish olive coun­try — for the sign­ing of a man­i­festo sup­port­ing and defend­ing tast­ing pan­els.

Francisco Reyes, the head of the Jaén’s provin­cial gov­ern­ment, signed the doc­u­ment, which is ulti­mately des­tined for the desk of Isabel García Tejerina, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food and Environment.

“We have had to respond to the demand of an impor­tant part of the olive oil pro­duc­tion sec­tor… in defense of the tast­ing panel.” Reyes said. ​“From the Provincial Council, we believe it is a fun­da­men­tal instru­ment to con­tinue bet­ter­ing and defend­ing the qual­ity of olive oils.”

The man­i­festo has enjoyed wide­spread sup­port through­out the world’s largest olive oil pro­duc­ing coun­try but has also received push­back from exporters and trade asso­ci­a­tions. These two groups warn that in an increas­ingly ana­lyt­i­cal and data-dri­ven world, legal inse­cu­ri­ties sur­round­ing tast­ing pan­els abound.

Among the orga­ni­za­tions rais­ing con­cerns about these legal inse­cu­ri­ties are the National Association of Industrial Packers and Edible Oil Refiners (ANIERAC) and the Spanish Association of the Olive Oil Exporting Industry and Commerce (ASOLIVA). They argue that dis­crep­an­cies between tast­ing pan­els from dif­fer­ent coun­tries harm the exporters’ prof­itabil­ity as well as the rep­u­ta­tion of Spanish olive oil pro­duc­ers abroad.

An audit con­ducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), one of the four largest audit­ing firms in the world, and com­mis­sioned by ANIERAC and ASOLIVA, found a 30 per­cent vari­abil­ity in the qual­i­fi­ca­tions of extra vir­gin olive oils when tested by dif­fer­ent tast­ing pan­els.

Another test con­ducted by PwC found that the same tast­ing panel tested the same sam­ple of olive oil twice with dif­fer­ent results. The sam­ple was graded as vir­gin olive oil after the first tast­ing. When it was pre­sented for the sec­ond time, it was graded as extra vir­gin olive oil.

“When the same sam­ple of oil is sent at dif­fer­ent times to the same or a dif­fer­ent offi­cial panel or pri­vate lab­o­ra­tory there are changes in opin­ion which some­times results in two dif­fer­ent clas­si­fi­ca­tions for the same sam­ple of oil,” the PwCs report said. ​“In some cases, the sec­ond sam­ple sent received a bet­ter result than the first sam­ple.”

The PwC report cited a dis­par­ity of sen­so­r­ial cri­te­ria when tast­ing olive oils and an absence of uni­form method­ol­ogy as the major causes of these dis­par­i­ties. The audit­ing firm rec­om­mended elim­i­nat­ing tast­ing pan­els alto­gether and replac­ing them with chem­i­cal tests.

“As a result of the above [report], it is evi­dent that the organolep­tic tests cur­rently estab­lished within the area of vir­gin and extra vir­gin olive oil rep­re­sent an inap­pro­pri­ate qual­ity con­trol mech­a­nism that vio­lates the most ele­men­tal prin­ci­ples of the Spanish legal sys­tem, and gravely harms the pub­lic and the olive oil indus­try, fre­quently gen­er­at­ing legal uncer­tainty and inse­cu­rity which, ulti­mately, dis­credit the sec­tor and cause seri­ous finan­cial harm to the indus­try,” the firm starkly warned.

Even ANIERAC and ASOLIVA, who sup­ported the PwC audit, found this con­clu­sion to be a bit dra­con­ian.

“Just to tell you, the Spanish indus­try is not against the panel tests, it is against its cur­rent appli­ca­tion and the con­se­quences that arise for com­pa­nies and for the extra vir­gin cat­e­gory from these tests,” Rafael Pico Lapuente, the direc­tor of ASOLIVA, said.

“The oil’s qual­ity is always being ques­tioned and pro­duc­ers are accused of fraud, when we con­sider that there is no such fraud.”

Drafters and sup­port­ers of the man­i­festo vehe­mently dis­agree with the tech­no­cratic view of olive oil clas­si­fi­ca­tion held by PwC. They point out the method­olo­gies of tast­ing pan­els were estab­lished by the International Olive Council (IOC) and enshrined within com­ple­men­tary European Union reg­u­la­tions.

“The sen­sory analy­sis method applied to vir­gin olive oils is an indis­pens­able tool for the clas­si­fi­ca­tion of olive oils, which allows us to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between cat­e­gories, above phys­i­cal-chem­i­cal analy­sis,” its advo­cates wrote in the man­i­festo.

“This method has been in con­tin­u­ous evo­lu­tion since its incep­tion, and is still sus­cep­ti­ble to improve­ments like any other… We do not share the prob­lem of legal inse­cu­rity, for lack of con­sis­tent, objec­tive and demon­stra­ble argu­ments, and we ask the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food and Environment to con­tinue the appli­ca­tion of this method.”

Pico Lapuente said olive oil pro­duc­ers are miss­ing the larger eco­nomic pic­ture in this argu­ment. He argues that exporters’ prof­itabil­ity in inter­na­tional mar­kets neces­si­tates the need for global olive oil qual­ity stan­dards. He believes that pro­duc­ers dou­bling down on the man­i­festo, which fails to present any evi­dence for their case, will not sway the Ministry.

“It is very easy to speak from the pro­duc­tion sec­tor because they do not mar­ket the olive oils and there­fore do not assume any risk with the panel test,” he said. ​“On the other hand, we present evi­dence of legal inse­cu­rity, through the afore­men­tioned reports, but the pro­duc­ing sec­tor does not present any evi­dence to sup­port its opin­ion and only make value judg­ments.”

However, Pico Lapuente sees the meet­ing of the IOC Advisory Committee later this month as a way to ease the ten­sions and come up with a solu­tion that pro­tects exporters and val­i­dates pro­duc­ers.

The com­mit­tee has already come up with six pro­pos­als to help parse the divide between these two camps, includ­ing the har­mo­niza­tion of tast­ing pan­els and allow­ing IOC accred­ited lab­o­ra­tory judg­ments of olive oil qual­ity to remain unchal­lenged for 12 months.

Rather than pick sides, the com­mit­tee believes ancient tra­di­tions and mod­ern tech­nol­ogy can be hap­pily mar­ried as they already are in so many Spanish olive groves and mills.

“The work­ing group rec­og­nizes the impor­tance of the organolep­tic assess­ment method for the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and clas­si­fi­ca­tion of vir­gin olive oils,” the com­mit­tee said.

“The IOC and its mem­ber coun­tries should step up their efforts and pur­sue research to iden­tify meth­ods of chem­i­cal analy­sis that offer pro­fes­sion­als improved legal cer­tainty and can be used to sup­ple­ment organolep­tic assess­ment.”

• Diputación de Jaén


• ANIERAC