Certification in extra virgin olive oil appears increasingly important to provide the consumer with a fully traceable and therefore transparent product in terms of environmental and healthy impact.
The future of the food sector is increasingly moving towards a biological horizon, the only one capable of guaranteeing the protection of health and correct production, economic and ecological dynamics.
Food sustainability must increasingly focus on production tools that can guarantee fairness of resources and a fair price for the finished product. Just to promote greater transparency of food products and protect the consumer, the need for correct certification in extra virgin olive oil arises.
It is important to read the label
The important results obtained in the direction of greater transparency for the consumer were also achieved thanks to the pressure of the Italian producers of extra virgin olive oil. In the past, the sector was literally targeted by wholesalers who advertised mediocre products with labels without precise indications regarding the origin of the pressing olives.
Only in 2014 was the obligation to include the denomination, the designation of origin and, since 2016, the nutritional label introduced on the labels.
The EVO name stands for extra virgin olive oil and indicates a higher category oil, differentiating it from the denomination “virgin olive oil” which indicates an oil obtained directly from olives, but not of a higher category.
Even the designation of origin appears as an essential certification to understand the quality of the oil we are purchasing. The DOP marks guarantee the certification of a product with specific territorial characteristics and certainly represents an indicator of superior quality. However, the obligation remains for extra virgin olive oil or virgin olive oil, the indication of the country of origin of the olives used.
The label of the extra virgin olive oil and the presence of its certifications therefore represent a true identity card of the product and must therefore be carefully evaluated when making your purchase. Behind each choice, in fact, economic, ethical and environmental reasons condense, which directly affect production systems and all those involved in the supply chain; choices on which more and more attention must be paid.