`Cretan Producers Suggest Ways to Improve EU Action Plan - Olive Oil Times

Cretan Producers Suggest Ways to Improve EU Action Plan

By Costas Vasilopoulos
Aug. 6, 2012 08:18 UTC

The Association of Olive Oil Producing Municipalities of Crete (SEDIK) has com­piled a memo with sug­ges­tions to improve Europe’s olive oil action plan for boost­ing the ail­ing indus­try. The memo has been sent to the Greek Ministry of Agriculture, mem­bers of the Parliament and the mem­bers of the European Parliament.

The sug­ges­tions include:

  • The extra vir­gin” grade should have an acid­ity level up to 0.5 grams per 100 grams
  • The vir­gin” grade should be termed clas­sic vir­gin” with an acid­ity level up to 1 gram per 100 grams
  • The olive oil” grade should be termed processed olive oil” with the invi­o­lable con­di­tion to con­tain 50 per­cent clas­sic vir­gin at least
  • The limit of the alkyl esters should be set at 50 mg per kilo
  • The limit of stig­mas­ta­di­ene should be set at 0.05 mg per kilo

.

The Cretan Association agrees with the inten­tion to improve the clas­si­fi­ca­tion of the dif­fer­ent qual­i­ties of olive oil in order to pro­tect con­sumers from fraud and pro­mote oil of good qual­ity. After all, Greece itself would take advan­tage of it since over 75 per­cent of its oil is of extra vir­gin qual­ity.

Regarding the pro­mo­tion of olive oil, it is stated that the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the producers/exporters (the amount they have to pay by them­selves as a con­tri­bu­tion to the EU funds) should be reduced, and the European bud­get should be allo­cated to all of the grades of olive oil so that high qual­ity oil can be equally pro­moted.

Last but not least, the Association brings up the mat­ter of the vari­a­tions of the olive oil qual­ity assess­ment meth­ods used by new play­ers in the indus­try such as the United States and Australia, and it urges author­i­ties world­wide to agree on qual­ity stan­dards applic­a­ble glob­ally in order for con­sumers to avoid con­fu­sion.



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