La qualità nella filiera produttiva olearia

Quality in food products implies ability to satisfy an increasing number of customers’ requirements, deriving not only from organolectic and nutrizionistic but also from cultural factors including social-environmental implications. An effective way to comply with those requirements could arise from typical national products, among which virgin olive oils stand out, marked with a traditional prestigious image. Furthermore, the new communitarian dispositions regarding olive oil commerce do not seem to sufficiently guarantee, both national production and final customers, for clarity and transparency of information. Therefore, the operators of this sector have at their disposal some instruments of protection such as designations of origin (together with geographical indications), product and quality or environmental management system certifications, as well as the recent methodologies for traceability, which offer to the stakeholders an added value in terms of guarantee for the productive chain. The integration of those instruments also seems to be favourable for many organizations of the sector, in fact they have indicated in the scope of their certified management system the obtaining of the DOP or the production and the commerce of olive oils deriving from biological agriculture.