**Acknowledgement**

The authors thank all tasters and the panel leader of the panel at the CRA-OLI. The author thank the Projects: CERTOLIO, GERMOLI and OLIOPIU' for financial support.

<sup>\*</sup> Corresponding Author

#### **9. References**

236 Olive Germplasm – The Olive Cultivation, Table Olive and Olive Oil Industry in Italy

polyunsaturated fatty acids can determine the rancid defect),

b. light (oil should be stored in the dark otherwise the photo-oxidization process on the

c. oxygen in the air (a series of oxidation reactions occur when the oil comes into contact with the air, modifying the chemical composition and subsequently the colour, smell and flavour). It is therefore good practice to store extra virgin olive oil in a sealed

Virgin olive oil is the only product that since 1991 has undergone sensory analysis regulated by European norms. It can be noted that the methodology for the sensory evaluation of virgin olive oil is well documented and standardized. Sensory analysis of olive oil is the evaluation of an oil's organoleptic attributes, which are appreciated through the senses of smell and taste. Sensory analysis is an essential part of evaluating olive oil quality and complements chemical analysis, both of which are requirements for determining the quality of olive oil according to International Olive Council (IOC) and new

The studies on olive oil have highlighted that the sensory qualities are affected by several agronomic and climatic parameters as well as extraction process. Due to here being a variation in the chemical composition of the oil, there is a possibility that these chemical compounds could be considered markers to be used to differentiate the various factors that

The results of the quantitative descriptive analysis carried out by 9 members of staff of the CRA-OLI on the virgin olive oils produced by single varieties cultivated in the collection field of CRA-OLI are given in the elaiographic cards attached to Chapter "*Description of* 

, Massimiliano Pellegrino and Enzo Perri *Agricultural Research Council - Olive Growing and Oil Industry Research Centre, Rende (CS), Italy* 

The authors thank all tasters and the panel leader of the panel at the CRA-OLI. The author

thank the Projects: CERTOLIO, GERMOLI and OLIOPIU' for financial support.

a. the temperature (12-15°C),

environment.

**8. Conclusion** 

USDA standards.

affect overall quality.

**Author details** 

Innocenzo Muzzalupo\*

**Acknowledgement** 

Corresponding Author

*varieties*"

 \*

	- Stone, H. & Sidel, J.L. (2004). Sensory evaluation practise. 3nd ed., Academic Press, San Diego, CA, ISBN 0-12-672690-6.

**Chapter 12** 

© 2012 Sindona and Taverna, licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2012 Sindona and Taverna, licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**Modern Methodologies to** 

**Assess the Olive Oil Quality** 

Giovanni Sindona and Domenico Taverna

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

**1.1. Food quality and safety assessment** 

Food quality and safety assessments are the main issues that modern food industries are required to fulfill in their production chains, being these properties directly correlated to the claims of a holistic nutrition representing the fundamentals of a healthy balanced diet. In the same direction goes, very recently, the need of checking the origin of an aliment even this is

All the steps of olive production chain require, as for any other food, a careful evaluation of the identity and absolute amounts of micro and macro components at the "molecular level". Protect Denomination of Origin (P.D.O.), Protected Geographical Identification (I.G.P.) and other acronyms associated to olive oil quality, are often based on the apparent evaluation of macroscopic properties which hardly deals with a scientific approach to the problem, and whose official protocols of analysis lack often of the required specificity. A case study might be represented by the food safety incident worldwide known as *the melamine milk scandal*. Hundreds of babies fed with milk diluted with water and fraudulently treated with melamine to artificially increase the apparent protein content, developed kidney stones. Melamine is a plasticizer of molecular formula C3H6N6 thus with a nitrogen content equal to 67% of its molecular weight. The international official protocols for protein assay are still based on the two hundred years old Kjeldahl method, whereby the nitrogen content is evaluated from the amount of the released ammonia. This was the fate of melamine too! Exactly in the same period researchers from the University of Shangai have published a mass spectrometric assay of melamine in milk based on the specificity of isotope dilution

The assessment of quality and safety of all the steps of a given food chain needs to be based on the exploitation of high-tech analytical methodologies. Mass spectrometry represents a

aspect is apparently not directly correlated to the main issues above presented.

method by means of a contemporary, reliable and affordable approach.1

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/52142

**1. Introduction** 

**Chapter 12** 
