`Professional Olive Oil Training the Focus in Portugal - Olive Oil Times

Professional Olive Oil Training the Focus in Portugal

By Michael Angelopoulos
May. 21, 2013 08:30 UTC

Three Universities are join­ing forces in Portugal and estab­lish­ing courses to edu­cate par­tic­i­pants on var­i­ous impor­tant issues con­cern­ing the pro­duc­tion of olive oil on the mill level.

Olive fruit-press­ing is a sig­nif­i­cant step to the pro­duc­tion of the final prod­uct. Handling and pro­cess­ing the olive fruit within olive-press­ing facil­i­ties, affect clas­si­fi­ca­tion, mar­ket price, and the product’s life cycle.

The International University of Andalusia, the University of Jaén and the University of Évora (ICAAM, CEFAGE and NUFOR) in Portugal say that they want to con­tribute to the pro­fes­sion­al­iza­tion of the olive oil sec­tor in the Iberian Peninsula. In par­tic­u­lar, among regions of Portugal and the Spanish regions of Extremadura near Andalusia, where the eco­nomic activ­i­ties linked to the olive and olive oil pro­duc­tion are increas­ing.”

The pro­gram con­sists of three sep­a­rate semes­ters, each with three or more courses.

The first part is sched­uled to start this week, which will cover effi­cient man­age­ment of mills, sen­sory analy­sis and the influ­ence of dif­fer­ent pro­cess­ing steps to the sen­sory char­ac­ter­is­tics of olive oil.

The sec­ond group of courses, to be held between 12 and 27 July, will teach the devel­op­ment of high qual­ity olive oil and the man­age­ment of byprod­ucts gen­er­ated as the result of oil-extrac­tion processes.

The final part of the train­ing in September will deal with ques­tions about man­ag­ing mar­ket­ing strate­gies, poli­cies, and actions within the oil indus­try.

Professionals who are cur­rently involved in the pro­duc­tion, man­age­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of olive oil are par­tic­u­larly encour­aged to enroll in the pro­gram.

The ini­tia­tive is spon­sored by sev­eral pri­vate brands in the olive oil indus­try along with the Portuguese Institute of Mediterranean Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (ICAAM).

ICAAM was founded in 1991 and runs a study-farm of 285 hectares near the city of Evora, Portugal. The insti­tute works with sci­en­tists and experts from the fields of agri­cul­tural engi­neer­ing, ani­mal sci­ence, biol­ogy, physics, chem­istry, vet­eri­nary med­i­cine and oth­ers.

The non-profit orga­ni­za­tion con­tributes to edu­ca­tion pro­grams from pro­fes­sional train­ing up to the post­grad­u­ate level.

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