rox
Veteran Member
Since we have been participating in a big olive oil competiton in Germany and for the last 2 years (waiting on this years judging right now) made the cut as being one of the best olive oils int he world, we were asked to send in samples of our olive oil to a chemical research center in Hagen Germany. there is a PhD who researches olive oil.
They desired t ahve pur samples, oil that was pure by cultivar/variatal. They figured that the top award winning producers would be likely to be able to provide pure samples. Backtrack a bit.
Olive trees are grown in rows and you typically plant one row of cultivar x, then one row of cultivar y, then one row of cultivar z. Research ahs been done and certain cultivars when planted next to it's corresponding buddy cultivar produces more olvies ont he trees. Now when you go to harvest it is a real PIA. You harvest by cultivar, you go around all your fields and pick Cultivar x, then start all over and pick cultivar y frrm all your fields etc. It would be great to jsut pick one field, once you ahve the net laid down and finished picking a row, you could jsut slide the net over to the next row and start picking the next row. However the rows are different cultivars so you can't do that. Most of our fields we go back 3 times and some of them 4 times instead of clear picking a field. So you can see that to do it properly and not mix olives into one pressing it is a lot more work. Consequently a lot of people mix their olive cultivars becasue it is easier picking. We dont' do that, if we only pick Cultivar a that is all that goes int he box and into the press. Thsu we produce pure oils by variatal/cultivar. That is what the researchers wanted pure oil by variatal. That is the only way we do it so we sent int he samples.
I called the director of the Research Center and asked if they would be testing polyphenols (antioxidents) he said he would but their main experiments were for testing Diglycerides. I didn't think to much about it I was more curious about the polyphenols myself and this was a real good opportunity for me to get free results on our polyphenols. The tests seemed to take a long time and I called him back a couple times.
Finally this week I called him back to udnerstand the reports. Guess what he told me? He said that ALL our olive oils had very high diglycerides, that he was surprised with the numbers. Then he said and I'll quote him, "Actually roxanne your oils scored the highest of any of the olive oils we tested, they were a lot higher" and he said it in a real positive way real upbeat like this is a great thing. Okay now he has my interest so I ask him what being high in diglycerides means. he said that oil high in diglycerides indicates a high quality olive oil that was picked at the correct moment and pressed immediatly after picking.
We changed moulins (mills) this year and we are at a terrific mill. They really do press our olives right away the same night that we bring them in. They are delighted to have us as a customer and really are giving us prefferential treatment. of interest to me is that the manager of the mill is a woman. it is not very often that I am doing business woman to woman. I like it! We are a big account for that mill, not the biggest but neither a small potato either.
The Dr said that 80% Diglecerides indicates a really fresh oil and a high quality oil, our oils were all at 90%. he tested smaples form all over Europe, can oyu believe it we scored the highest +++ we have very very very low acidity also, all under 0.3 like 2.4% etc. I am amazed and I'm still so busy and so is my hsuband, that I have not had proper time to incorporate this into some marketing. i know the newspapers here love this type of information. We ahve been in the papers many times. This is jsut one more chance to get our farm name int he newspaper and continue to build our brand. Only one cultivar was like 88% or something like that jsut a tad lower than the others. it was the first variatal we picked and as is usual the start of the harvest season it takes you a while to get organized. My husband was running the shaking machines to late int he day and it ws dark and we didn't pick up the olives that night, but the next day. I got so mad at him for those olives being ont he net overnight that I kind of faked it a little bit with the mill manager. With my crappy french language I managed to communicate that I wanted her to write me a note home saying, for the top quality oil you must bring to the mill the olvies the same day they are picked. then i brought the note home to my husband and said the mill manager could tell that the olvies were not picked that day and she sent this note home. Well from then on, every olive got taken to the mill the same day, my husband was worried that she would nto buy oil form us. We do sell jsut enough oil to the mill to cover our pressing charges. He got that note sent home (which actually i asked her to write for me) and from then on evrythign went like clockwork. So that first cultivar that at the beginning of the harvest we didn't get taken in the same day, that is the cultivar that scored jsut a few points lower, but again extreemly high. So I do think those tests are correct.
Most farmers do not take in every single olive, they wait for a full load and bring them in the next day. But at the end of the day, usually i made two to three runs a day, if that last 3rd load wa a partial load i went anyway, and look- it now shows up in the test results! This is amazing.
This doctor has been presenting hsi research in Belgium at the European Community headquarters on laws governing olive oil. he wants the testing of diglecerides to be the standard for testing qualtiy olive oil. There is currently another "thing' they measure called peroxide. he says that peroxide measuremnts tell you nothing, that it is worthless and that testing of diglecerides are the best chemical method of stamping qualtiy on an olive oil, and accepting it for extra Virgin status. Basically he is trying to get the law changed. he is a good one to do it because Germany doesn't have a dog in the olive oil race as they don't grow olvies there, but are keenly researching olive oil for health benefits. He is a real interesting fellow and he sure did like our olive oil, he even asked me for pricing so that he could buy some. Well i figure if the research center director wants to buy your olvie oil after testing olive oil form all over Europe, well that is pretty nifty.
So even though this is a long post I thought it was interesting enough to share. Lately my news to share has been low as all we have been doing is pruning olvie trees and burning the branches.
They desired t ahve pur samples, oil that was pure by cultivar/variatal. They figured that the top award winning producers would be likely to be able to provide pure samples. Backtrack a bit.
Olive trees are grown in rows and you typically plant one row of cultivar x, then one row of cultivar y, then one row of cultivar z. Research ahs been done and certain cultivars when planted next to it's corresponding buddy cultivar produces more olvies ont he trees. Now when you go to harvest it is a real PIA. You harvest by cultivar, you go around all your fields and pick Cultivar x, then start all over and pick cultivar y frrm all your fields etc. It would be great to jsut pick one field, once you ahve the net laid down and finished picking a row, you could jsut slide the net over to the next row and start picking the next row. However the rows are different cultivars so you can't do that. Most of our fields we go back 3 times and some of them 4 times instead of clear picking a field. So you can see that to do it properly and not mix olives into one pressing it is a lot more work. Consequently a lot of people mix their olive cultivars becasue it is easier picking. We dont' do that, if we only pick Cultivar a that is all that goes int he box and into the press. Thsu we produce pure oils by variatal/cultivar. That is what the researchers wanted pure oil by variatal. That is the only way we do it so we sent int he samples.
I called the director of the Research Center and asked if they would be testing polyphenols (antioxidents) he said he would but their main experiments were for testing Diglycerides. I didn't think to much about it I was more curious about the polyphenols myself and this was a real good opportunity for me to get free results on our polyphenols. The tests seemed to take a long time and I called him back a couple times.
Finally this week I called him back to udnerstand the reports. Guess what he told me? He said that ALL our olive oils had very high diglycerides, that he was surprised with the numbers. Then he said and I'll quote him, "Actually roxanne your oils scored the highest of any of the olive oils we tested, they were a lot higher" and he said it in a real positive way real upbeat like this is a great thing. Okay now he has my interest so I ask him what being high in diglycerides means. he said that oil high in diglycerides indicates a high quality olive oil that was picked at the correct moment and pressed immediatly after picking.
We changed moulins (mills) this year and we are at a terrific mill. They really do press our olives right away the same night that we bring them in. They are delighted to have us as a customer and really are giving us prefferential treatment. of interest to me is that the manager of the mill is a woman. it is not very often that I am doing business woman to woman. I like it! We are a big account for that mill, not the biggest but neither a small potato either.
The Dr said that 80% Diglecerides indicates a really fresh oil and a high quality oil, our oils were all at 90%. he tested smaples form all over Europe, can oyu believe it we scored the highest +++ we have very very very low acidity also, all under 0.3 like 2.4% etc. I am amazed and I'm still so busy and so is my hsuband, that I have not had proper time to incorporate this into some marketing. i know the newspapers here love this type of information. We ahve been in the papers many times. This is jsut one more chance to get our farm name int he newspaper and continue to build our brand. Only one cultivar was like 88% or something like that jsut a tad lower than the others. it was the first variatal we picked and as is usual the start of the harvest season it takes you a while to get organized. My husband was running the shaking machines to late int he day and it ws dark and we didn't pick up the olives that night, but the next day. I got so mad at him for those olives being ont he net overnight that I kind of faked it a little bit with the mill manager. With my crappy french language I managed to communicate that I wanted her to write me a note home saying, for the top quality oil you must bring to the mill the olvies the same day they are picked. then i brought the note home to my husband and said the mill manager could tell that the olvies were not picked that day and she sent this note home. Well from then on, every olive got taken to the mill the same day, my husband was worried that she would nto buy oil form us. We do sell jsut enough oil to the mill to cover our pressing charges. He got that note sent home (which actually i asked her to write for me) and from then on evrythign went like clockwork. So that first cultivar that at the beginning of the harvest we didn't get taken in the same day, that is the cultivar that scored jsut a few points lower, but again extreemly high. So I do think those tests are correct.
Most farmers do not take in every single olive, they wait for a full load and bring them in the next day. But at the end of the day, usually i made two to three runs a day, if that last 3rd load wa a partial load i went anyway, and look- it now shows up in the test results! This is amazing.
This doctor has been presenting hsi research in Belgium at the European Community headquarters on laws governing olive oil. he wants the testing of diglecerides to be the standard for testing qualtiy olive oil. There is currently another "thing' they measure called peroxide. he says that peroxide measuremnts tell you nothing, that it is worthless and that testing of diglecerides are the best chemical method of stamping qualtiy on an olive oil, and accepting it for extra Virgin status. Basically he is trying to get the law changed. he is a good one to do it because Germany doesn't have a dog in the olive oil race as they don't grow olvies there, but are keenly researching olive oil for health benefits. He is a real interesting fellow and he sure did like our olive oil, he even asked me for pricing so that he could buy some. Well i figure if the research center director wants to buy your olvie oil after testing olive oil form all over Europe, well that is pretty nifty.
So even though this is a long post I thought it was interesting enough to share. Lately my news to share has been low as all we have been doing is pruning olvie trees and burning the branches.
