Cretan Olive Oil Receives PGI Quality Certification

Summary

Cretan extra vir­gin olive oil has received Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) sta­tus from the European Union, with spe­cific require­ments for pro­duc­tion in Crete, includ­ing the use of cer­tain olive vari­eties. The recog­ni­tion aims to safe­guard the unique qual­ity and rep­u­ta­tion of Cretan olive oil, encour­ag­ing pro­duc­ers and exporters to explore new mar­ket­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and pre­serve the diverse char­ac­ter­is­tics of the island’s olive oils.

Cretan extra vir­gin olive oil has received Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) sta­tus from the European Union, indi­cat­ing that its qual­ity and spe­cial char­ac­ter­is­tics are attrib­ut­able to its place of ori­gin.

The name Κρήτη/Kriti was added to the European Union’s geo­graph­i­cal indi­ca­tions (GI) reg­is­ter for food prod­ucts on September 11^th after the appli­ca­tion had been sub­mit­ted to the European Commission in July 2021.

Since 1992, when the qual­ity schemes for European agri­cul­tural prod­ucts and food prod­ucts were intro­duced, a total of 33 Greek olive oils have received Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and PGI sta­tus.

According to data pub­lished by the E.U., the name Kriti/Κρήτη applies to extra vir­gin olive oil with an acid­ity 0.6 or lower pro­duced exclu­sively in the region of Crete. 

The region com­prises all four dis­tricts of the island of Crete – Chania, Heraklion, Rethymnon, and Lasithi – known for their high-qual­ity olive oil pro­duc­tion.

The E.U. also spec­i­fied that at least 90 per­cent of the olives used for Kriti olive oil must be of the Koroneiki or the Tsounati vari­ety or a com­bi­na­tion of the two. A max­i­mum of ten per­cent may be derived from other olive vari­eties, mainly the Throumba. 

Requirements for chem­i­cal and organolep­tic char­ac­ter­is­tics have also been set for an olive oil to use the PGI-cer­ti­fied Kriti/Κρήτη name.

“Cretan extra vir­gin olive oil is known and held in high esteem for its qual­ity and taste in Greece and abroad,” the E.U. said.

“Specifically, its rep­u­ta­tion began to take on a global dimen­sion with the Seven Countries Study… and showed that the pop­u­la­tion of Crete had the low­est mor­tal­ity from coro­nary heart dis­ease, a fact which was attrib­uted, inter alia, to their reg­u­lar con­sump­tion of large quan­ti­ties of olive oil.”

The Exporters’ Association of Crete, which was actively involved in man­ag­ing the lengthy recog­ni­tion process, hailed the for­mal recog­ni­tion of Cretan olive oil.

“After a per­sis­tent and coor­di­nated effort of at least seven years… the European Union approved the reg­is­tra­tion of Kriti PGI olive oil,” the asso­ci­a­tion said in an announce­ment. ​“This deci­sion rec­og­nizes and insti­tu­tion­ally safe­guards the unique­ness, excep­tional qual­ity, and inter­na­tion­ally rec­og­nized rep­u­ta­tion of Cretan extra vir­gin olive oil.”

Crete is among the top olive oil-pro­duc­ing regions in Greece, account­ing for around one-third of the national olive oil yield each year. 

Greece’s largest island boasts many diverse micro­cli­mates and ter­roirs, which are respon­si­ble for the pro­duc­tion of high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oils that vary sig­nif­i­cantly in fla­vor and organolep­tic char­ac­ter­is­tics.

However, around 30 per­cent of the olive oil pro­duced on Crete is exported to Italy in bulk. The E.U. cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is expected to encour­age the island’s pro­duc­ers and exporters to explore new ways to mar­ket their value-added olive oils.

In advance, some Cretan extra vir­gin olive oils pro­duced in spe­cific areas on the island, includ­ing Sitia in east­ern Crete, Peza and Archanes in Heraklion and Kolymbari near Chania, have already been cer­ti­fied as PDO olive oils by the EU.

Producers in these areas said that it took years to raise the vis­i­bil­ity of their excel­lent olive oils, which were finally for­mally rec­og­nized by the E.U. for their high qual­ity.

They added that to pre­serve the spe­cial char­ac­ter­is­tics of Crete’s diverse olive oils, a mech­a­nism must be devised to inform con­sumers about the ben­e­fits of the sep­a­rate PGI and PDO labels attrib­uted to olive oils pro­duced on the island.