Australia is still lobbying the International Oil Council (IOC) to broaden its standards for the chemical composition of olive oil to cover those grown in environments beyond the Mediterranean region.
The Australian Olive Association and Dr Rodney Mailer, who heads the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries’ chemical testing laboratory and oversees the commercial testing of olive oil at the Department’s laboratories, have been at the forefront of the push to get official recognition of Australian olive oils as authentic extra virgin olive oils.
Like grapes, and the wine they produce, it is not uncommon for the same varieties of olives to produce oils with slightly different characteristics when grown in different soils and climatic environments.
As a result some extra virgin olive oils produced in Australian have sterol, campesterol and fatty acid levels which are outside the levels stipulated by the IOC.
Unfortunately the IOC standards form the basis for the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nation’s Codex Alimentarius and European Union regulations and are therefore the standards for international trade.
Dr Mailer says that Australian olive oils are still extra virgin despite some having a slightly different chemical make up.
The IOC standards are derived from conditions and experiences in the Mediterranean region and when formulated there would have been no signifi cant olive oil production and trading, outside that area.
However, today a number of regions around the world have an olive industry, albeit small in comparison to olive production in the Mediterranean area, including Australia.
Dr Mailer said there were signs of some relaxation of the standards and Italy, for example, was buying reasonable quantities of olive oil from Australia.
He said Australia would continue in its efforts to get the rules that define olive oil relaxed.
“We don’t want to blend our oils to meet their standards. We want them to recognise that there is a natural variation in the chemical make-up of extra virgin olive oil.”
He said the standards have to be altered so that the oil doesn’t have to.
