Project results

The results of the project “Innovation and Research for the Extra Virgin Olive Oil on the Alto Garda Trentino”, exposed during the technical conference that took place on 10 May 2019.

On this day, we presented the results achieved during “Innovation and Research for the Extra Virgin Olive Oil on the Alto Garda Trentino”, the research project financed by Agraria Riva del Garda and the Autonomous Province of Trento – APIAE. The project was a collaboration of the Consortium and Fondazione Edmund Mach (four research units).

These three years of research were an intense and exemplary experience of collaboration between producers and research institutions. The presence at the Consortium of a technical staff of excellence— goal-oriented and equipped with cutting-edge production technologies—started an optimal synergy with Fondazione Edmund Mach’s researchers. The complete integration, necessary for the realization of all the project’s phases, was possible thanks to several meetings and fruitful discussions. It was possible to dissect the multiple traits that support the quality and the sustainability of the Alto Garda Trentino’s olive oil productions, especially of the Casaliva extra virgin olive oil.

The olive oil sector confuses the consumer because it classifies as extra virgin olive oil products that sometimes have very different quality levels, such as blended oils, artisanal monocultivar oils and oils from the territory. In European countries such as Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany and Spain the market is largely in the hands of the mass distribution brands, often proposed as a premium product, able to reach interesting prices in Northern Europe. The market in Italy is very concentrated too, with the first ten brands covering more than 50% of the sales. The prices are very low also because an enormous part is sold discounted.

The project highlighted the various traits that form the basis of the diversity and uniqueness of the Garda Trentino DOP Casaliva extra virgin olive oil. The results clearly document that the Casaliva oil absolutely stands out and affirms itself as a quality product. It has distinctive and unique features, largely due to the excellent quality and the correct level of ripeness of the Casaliva fruit. This quality requires additional work in the countryside and in the mill, during the harvest and the processing. It requires also a great deal of attention in order to obtain the ideal conservation. These are all concrete, objective and precisely documented traits that must be communicated to the consumers so that they can be appreciated.

 

Fulvio Mattivi

 

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