Editorial
New Insights into the Specificity, Authenticity, and Traceability
Analysis of Olive Oil

Cabrita, Maria João

Garcia, Raquel

Foods

English

Olive oil is a traditional product of the Mediterranean diet [...

Raquel Garcia

Maria João Cabrita

Directory of Open Access Journals

New Insights into the Specificity, Authenticity, and Traceability Analysis of Olive Oils

Repositório Científico da Universidade de Évora

foodsEditorialNew Insights into the Specificity, Authenticity, and TraceabilityAnalysis of Olive OilsRaquel Garcia and Maria João Cabrita *Citation: Garcia, R.; Cabrita, M.J.New Insights into the Specificity,Authenticity, and TraceabilityAnalysis of Olive Oils. Foods 2021, 10,2372. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10102372Received: 17 September 2021Accepted: 29 September 2021Published: 6 October 2021Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutralwith regard to jurisdictional claims inpublished maps and institutional affil-iations.Copyright: © 2021 by the authors.Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.This article is an open access articledistributed under the terms andconditions of the Creative CommonsAttribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).MED—Mediterranean Institute for Agriculture, Environment and Development, Departamento de Fitotecnia,Escola de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade de Évora, Pólo da Mitra, Ap. 94, 7006-554 Évora, Portugal;raquelg@uevora.pt* Correspondence: mjbc@uevora.ptOlive oil is a traditional product of the Mediterranean diet. The nutritional propertiesand remarkable health benefits associated with olive oil consumption explain the growingworldwide use of this product in people’s diets [1]. In fact, olive oil consumption hasspread to countries that were not traditionally olive oils producers. Owing to its highprice, extra virgin olive oil—the top grade of olive oil production—could be prone tomislabeling and adulteration practices. This constitutes economic fraud but generallydoes not represent a human health risk. However, this is a global issue that damages thereputation of companies, disrupts markets, and leads to a loss of consumer confidence.Despite the protection of this edible oil by several EU regulations (e.g., regulation (EU)No 1308/2013, regulation (EEG) No 2568/91, or regulation (EU) No 29/2012), olive oil isstill one of the top ten products most affected by adulteration practices. These regulationsenable us to standardize the classification of different olive oil categories, but authenticityand traceability cannot be addressed by conventional methods. Nowadays, the specificity,authenticity, and traceability of olive oils are prominent topics. Aware of this concern,the scientific community is exploring the development and implementation of analyticaltools and methodologies that are suitable for accomplishing these tasks. Indeed, severalinnovative approaches are emerging, allowing to implement more selective, reliable, androbust methods. Thus, this Special Issue aims to highlight emerging topics related to thespecificity, authenticity, and traceability analysis of olive oils and allow researchers topresent their latest developments and innovations to a global audience.Despite the aim of this Special Issue encompassing three key topics—specificity,authenticity, and adulteration—no contributions were received regarding the theme ofspecificity. Thus, this editorial has collected papers giving an interesting outlook on severalpromising methodologies, including NMR-based approaches [2,3], chromatographic tech-niques [4–7], and stable isotope analysis [8] combined with advanced statistical modellingtechniques for addressing the geographic and varietal origin of olive oils and cultivar dif-ferentiation, highlighting the themes of authenticity and traceability. Researchers have alsodevoted their attention to some classes of target compounds that are present in olive oils,namely volatiles [6], n-alkanes and n-alkenes [5], triacylglycerols [2], and biophenols [7].Their role in the discrimination between olive oils based on geographic origin and cultivar,using advanced analytical techniques, has been investigated. Another approach encom-passed in this Special Issue covers the building of a specific 1HNMR profiling databaseusing monocultivar reference olive oil for the analysis of olive oil blends [3]. Additionally,to verify the geographic origin of virgin olive oil, an untargeted analysis using LC-qToF-MSwas utilized in one study [4].All these papers actively contribute to creating a more complete picture of the situationand could open new avenues in the field of food authenticity and traceability.Author Contributions: The authors contributed equally for the writing of this editorial. All authorshave read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.Foods 2021, 10, 2372. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10102372 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/foodsFoods 2021, 10, 2372 2 of 2Funding: This research received no external funding.Acknowledgments: The authors thank the support by National Funds through FCT-Foundation forScience and Technology under the Project UIDB/05183/2020.Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.References1. Boskou, D. Olive Oil-Minor Constituents and Health, 1st ed.; CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group: Boca Raton, FL, USA, 2009;pp. 7–173.2. Cabrita, M.J.; Pires, A.; Burke, A.J.; Garcia, R. Seeking a Fast Screening Method of the Varietal Origin of Olive Oil: The Usefulnessof an NMR-Based Approach. Foods 2021, 10, 399. [CrossRef] [PubMed]3. Girelli, C.R.; Calò, F.; Angilè, F.; Mazzi, L.; Barbini, D.; Fanizzi, F.P. 1H NMR Spectroscopy to Characterize Italian Extra VirginOlive Oil Blends, Using Statistical Models and Databases Based on Monocultivar Reference Oils. Foods 2020, 9, 1797. [CrossRef][PubMed]4. Willenberg, I.; Parma, A.; Bonte, A.; Matthäus, B. Development of Chemometric Models Based on a LC-qToF-MS Approach toVerify the Geographic Origin of Virgin Olive Oil. Foods 2021, 10, 479. [CrossRef] [PubMed]5. Giuffreè, A.M. n-Alkanes and n-Alkenes in Virgin Olive Oil from Calabria (South Italy): The Effects of Cultivar and Harvest Date.Foods 2021, 10, 290. [CrossRef] [PubMed]6. Kosma, I.S.; Kontominas, M.G.; Badeka, A.V. The Application of Chemometrics to Volatile Compound Analysis for the Recognitionof Specific Markers for Cultivar Differentiation of Greek Virgin Olive Oil Samples. Foods 2020, 9, 1672. [CrossRef] [PubMed]7. Kritikou, E.; Kalogiouri, N.P.; Kostakis, M.; Kanakis, D.-C.; Martakos, I.; Lazarou, C.; Pentogennis, M.; Thomaidis, N.S.Geographical Characterization of Olive Oils from the North Aegean Region Based on the Analysis of Biophenols with UHPLC-QTOF-MS. Foods 2021, 10, 2102. [CrossRef] [PubMed]8. Jiménez-Morillo, N.T.; Palma, V.; Garcia, R.; Dias, C.B.; Cabrita, M.J. Combination of Stable Isotope Analysis and Chemometricsto Discriminate Geoclimatically and Temporally the Virgin Olive Oils from Three Mediterranean Countries. Foods 2020, 9, 1855.[CrossRef] [PubMed]

http://dspace.uevora.pt/rdpc/bitstream/10174/31987/1/2021%20New%20Insights%20into%20the%20Specificity%2c%20Authenticity%2c%20and%20Traceability%20Analysis%20of%20Olive%20Oils%20-%20editorial.pdf

New Insights into the Specificity, Authenticity, and Traceability Analysis of Olive Oils

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Directory of Open Access Journals

Repositório Científico da Universidade de Évora