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By Brian Lockhart,

The state’s strict new olive oil standards have left a bad taste in the mouth of one New York food importer who is arguing in court the rules are unfair, flaunt federal law and are hurting business.

Dennis Kangadis, vice president of New York-based Kangadis Food Inc., also known as The Gourmet Factory, has filed for a temporary injunction in Hartford Superior Court to prevent Department of Consumer Protection from imposing a ban on olive oil containing other kinds of oils and from seizing products that do not comply.

“The Gourmet Factory’s reputation and business relationships have already been harmed by the DCP’s adoption of the state Olive Oil Standards,” Kangadis’ attorney, Brett Boskiewicz of the Hartford-based Robinson & Cole law firm, claims in court documents.

The controversy stems from the differing olive oil standards imposed around the world.

According to court records, Connecticut last year chose to adopt criteria used by the International Olive Oil Council, a 41-member intergovernmental organization that does not include the United States.

The Gourmet Factory follows differing federal guidelines which grade olive oil based on fatty acid content, color, flavor, odor, cloudiness and sediment content.

But Connecticut lawmakers, at the urging of Norwalk-based Sclafani Importers, took a further step by preventing the sale of olive oils that — to cut production costs — are watered down with hazelnut, soy or peanut oils.

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By Rob Rogers,
Photo Frankie Frost,

Publishing heiress Nan McEvoy hopes a once-controversial 98-foot-tall windmill on her northern Marin ranch will become an inspiration for farmers and others interested in leaving fossil fuels behind.

“I know there is nothing my mother is prouder of,” said Nion McEvoy, who spoke on his mother’s behalf during a dedication ceremony at the McEvoy Ranch Wednesday morning. “I know that this project was controversial, but I hope that over time people will see it is not as terrible as they might have feared, and the positive aspects of promoting a progressive energy policy will become evident.”

McEvoy had originally planned to build a 246-foot-tall windmill, powerful enough to power and heat the dozen or so buildings and olive oil processing plant on her 552-acre ranch. After neighbors and the Marin Planning Commission balked at the windmill’s size, however, McEvoy proposed a smaller structure, with a 98-foot tower and blades 40 feet in diameter.

The new windmill will provide an average of 225 kilowatts of electricity, enough to meet the ranch’s needs. To heat the ranch, however, contractor Sustainenergy Systems of Inverness is currently installing solar thermal panels throughout the ranch’s buildings.

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The Australian Olive Association (AOA) is celebrating a welcomed boost after the Federal Government confirmed a $200,000 grant, which will enable the AOA to develop a high-profile marketing campaign to promote Australian extra virgin olive oil and table olives.

The funding, announced by Minister for Agriculture Tony Burke, is part of a $2 million wider initiative for 15 projects to help Australia’s food and seafood industries promote themselves to domestic and export markets.

The AOA will use the Australian Government grant to improve its capacity to promote the quality, freshness and health benefits of Australian extra virgin olive oil and table olives and engender a sense of loyalty for Australian olive products.

“The quality of Australian extra virgin olive oil is among the best in the world and we want people to know that,” AOA president Paul Miller said.

“We’re delighted to receive the funding which will go a long way to educating Australians about the quality and freshness of Australian extra virgin olive oil, as well as to ensure our country’s olive produce has a global presence.

The campaign will also focus on raising trade and consumer awareness of the AOA’s recently introduced Code of Practice.

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Recipe by Kate Murdoch,
Photo by Oliver Ford,

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Presentation and Degustation of /lambda/ an exclusive, luxurious and award winning Extra Virgin Olive Oil

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By Stephen Daniells,

Polyphenol-rich extracts from olive oil pomace may reduce the formation of off-flavours in meats by as much as 80 per cent, suggests new research.

The olive extract, obtained from the waste waters of olive oil pomace, performed better than a commercial antioxidant sourced from wine, according to findings published in the journal Food Chemistry.

“The polyphenol extract from the waste water of olive oil’s pomace significantly inhibited lipid oxidation in pre-cooked ground beef and pork. The antioxidant effect increased with the dose and was higher in beef than in pork,” wrote Sharon DeJong from Food Science Australia and Maria Cecilia Lanari from Argentina’s National Council for Scientific and Technical Investigation (CONICET).

Oxidation processes in food can lead to organoleptic deterioration in taste, colour and texture. The food industry has long been aware of this, and is increasingly seeking natural solutions rather than artificial additives, such as like butylhydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylhydroxytoluene (BHT), to extend the shelf life of milder-tasting products.

According to a 2003 report by Frost and Sullivan, the synthetic antioxidant market is in decline, while natural antioxidants, such as herb extracts, tocopherols (vitamin E) and ascorbates (vitamin C) are growing, pushed by consumer desire acceptance and easier market access.

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Cooking enthusiasts and olive oil aficionados are invited to join food professionals from around the world June 21-23 at UC Davis for an international conference exploring the best production practices, sensory qualities and culinary possibilities for the highest quality extra virgin olive oil.

“Beyond Extra Virgin,” the largest conference on olive-oil excellence ever held in North America, is designed for chefs, journalists, specialty retailers, food-service management executives, olive-oil producers, sensory scientists and anyone with a serious interest in cooking. Co-sponsored by the UC Davis Olive Center and The Culinary Institute of America, it will include two days at UC Davis and a third day at the institute’s Greystone campus in the Napa Valley.

The term “extra virgin” applies to olive oil that is the natural product of the olive, processed without any heat, solvents or other oils. The grade allows for a wide range of quality, including oil that is bland in flavor. The conference will focus on the top tier of extra virgin quality.

During the three-day conference, participants will be instructed about the critical control points — from harvest to storage — that advance or undermine flavors in extra virgin olive oil. They also will experience how leading chefs, including Paul Bartolotta, John Ash, Deborah Madison and Renato Morisco, are melding the modern with the ancient to highlight and even re-invent the best of these flavors.

The conference will begin at 4 p.m. on Sunday, June 21, with all sessions held in Freeborn Hall. On Tuesday, June 23, the participants will travel by chartered bus to The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone.

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The administrators of troubled agricultural projects manager Timbercorp say they have not yet determined if the company’s forestry projects are still viable, or insolvent like its olive and almonds projects.

Timbercorp was placed in administration in April, with liabilities estimated at the time of $930 million.

Mark Korda of administrator KordaMentha said on Thursday that full financial analysis of the forestry projects, which represented about 60 per cent of Timbercorp’s total business, was expected to be completed in the next week or two.

Mr Korda said the managed investment schemes (MIS) run by Timbercorp were so complex that the administrators were reluctant to draw conclusions about them until they had fully completed the analysis.

”With forestry, there’s probably $10 million required to run them just for the next three months,” Mr Korda said.
”But we haven’t done the full financial analysis of the forestry schemes.”

Mr Korda said investors in the Timbercorp’s forestry projects stood a better chance of getting something back than their counterparts in the horticulture projects.

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The waste obtained from olive during the oil extraction process can be used to eliminate heavy metals from sewage or waste waters of productive activities.

Olive pits, pomace and remains (from olive tree pruning) present an outstanding capacity to retain the lead present in this water, which confirms their capacity as biosorbents for their application in the depuration of effluents on an industrial scale.

This is one of the main conclusions of the doctoral thesis “Characterization and application of residual biomass for the elimination of heavy metals” carried out by M ngeles Martn Lara in the department of Chemical Engineering of the University of Granada, which has been supervised by professors Francisco Herninz Bermdez de Castro, Gabriel Blzquez Garca and Mnica Calero de Hoces.

Given the high la toxicity of heavy metals in solution on the ecosystem, one of the main problems of this industry at present is that there are not many metabolisation routes by the living beings or of degradation by the environment, and some of them have a limited capacity.

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By Andrew Weil,

Q: I understand that a magazine reported that a lot of the olive oil from Italy is adulterated with lesser oils and described ongoing fraud in the olive oil business. Do you have any information about this?

A: I have read the article you mention, it reports that fraud remains a major problem in the international olive oil business and that adulteration with inferior oils (hazelnut and seed oils) is especially common in Italy, the world’s leading importer, consumer and exporter of olive oil. The article notes that for the past 10 years, Spain has actually produced more olive oil than Italy, but much of the Spanish oil is shipped to Italy and then bottled and sold, legally, as Italian olive oil.

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Presentation of the 2009 edition of Olio Capitale, an Italian event exclusively dedicated to Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

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Britons with a taste for Mediterranean-style cooking are spending record amounts on olive oil.

Sales have topped £150million a year for the first time. That is double the amount sold eight years ago and significantly more than the £90million spent on vegetable oil.

Growing evidence of the health benefits of a Mediterranean diet is behind the trend. Experts say olive oil is low in harmful saturated fat and can protect against heart attacks, strokes and cancer.

Half of UK homes now use olive oil compared with just 35 per cent in 2001, data from market analysts Nielsen shows.

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A Toronto-area food importer and distributor has been fined for importing an olive/sunflower oil blend labelled as “extra virgin olive oil” in 2006.

Jan K. Overweel Ltd., which markets the Emma, Casa Italia and Cortina Foods brands and other imported products, was convicted in Toronto in February under the federal Food and Drugs Act, with the Ontario Court of Justice imposing a $40,000 fine plus the forfeit and disposal of over 27,000 litres of seized oil.

The imports in question, which took place between January and May 2006, were found to contain about 50 per cent sunflower oil and “did not meet the prescribed standard for olive oil,” the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in a release Wednesday.

Federal food regulations require, among other things, that olive oil “shall be the oil obtained from the fruit of the olive tree,” CFIA said.

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The Australian olive oil industry is teaming up with the United States to develop a new set of international olive oil standards.

Dr Rodney Mailer, from the Australian Oils Research Laboratory, says the European International Olive Council’s standards are too restrictive and treat unique aspects of Australian oils as negative traits.

He says Australian producers shouldn’t be disadvantaged, because their olive oil is different to European oils.

“One of the sterols in olive oil, campesterol, is a little bit higher [in Australian oils],” he says.

“This doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with the oil.

“The varieties we have here just have a bit more than what the [current] standards say they should have.

“In fact, I think it’s a good thing, because it’s a nutritional benefit but we have some trouble trying to export to Europe because of these standards.”

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By Jeremy Smith & Anthony Barker,

European Union regulators suggested granting olive oil producers subsidies for private storage from as early as June as a way to prevent more price falls, the European Commission said on Monday.

The Commission’s proposal, to be discussed soon by national experts from the EU’s 27 countries, would allow subsidised storage of virgin and virgin olive oils for 180 days, up to a maximum quantity of 110,000 tons if the experts agree.

Subsidised storage is a preferred EU way of giving income to farmers when internal prices for a commodity fall below a pre-determined trigger, so they can avoid selling at a loss.

The commodity is “bought in” to stores, either private or public, until prices rise again to a level attractive enough for it to be sold back into the EU internal market.

“Olive oil prices have been consistently decreasing in the EU since the start of the 2008/09 marketing year,” the Commission said in a statement.

“Given the present market conditions, a maximum quantity of 110,000 tonnes seems adequate to help rebalance the olive oil market,” it said.

The EU is the world’s leading producer of olive oil, with around 80 percent of output and 70 percent of consumption. Spain is the top producer worldwide, followed by Italy and Greece.

On several major representative markets in recent weeks, olive oil prices, specifically for extra virgin and virgin qualities, have remained under the EU trigger levels used for private storage: 1,779 euros ($2,490) a tonne for extra virgin olive oil and 1,710 euros for virgin olive oil.

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