Italian minister scores victory on olive oil labelling
December 24th, 2009 - 1:51 pm ICT by IANS ( 1 comment )Rome, Dec 24 (IANS/AKI) Italy’s Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia has won a hard-fought battle to obtain labelling for virgin and extra virgin olive oil that clearly states where the olives used to make it come from.
The victory is a boost for Italian olive oil producers, who are counting on the exceptional quality of the 2009-10 season’s oil to make up for a 15 percent fall in output compared with the previous season.
“Since July 1, transparent labelling indicating the country of origin of the olives has been mandatory in all of Europe,” said Zaia.
This means consumers will see ‘Italian virgin and extra virgin olive oil’ written on the labels of bottles, and will know where the oil comes from rather than unwittingly being sold blends of oils from various countries, he told journalists at a year-end press conference rounding up on his ministry’s activities.
Around 500,000 tonnes of Italian virgin and extra virgin olive oil was produced this year, compared with 600,000 tonnes in 2008. Annual consumer demand in Italy is around 700,000 tonnes, according to producers.
The European labelling norms are the result of 15 years of negotiations, Zaia noted, adding that he is spearheading campaigns at the European Union to obtain labelling transparency for various agricultural products, most recently milk.
“Italy will in future be a standard-bearer of mandatory labelling that will give citizens clear and reliable information on products and on food safety,” said Zaia.
“People want to know if what they are putting into their bodies is safe.”
–IANS/AKI
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Tags: agricultural products, agriculture minister, aki, blends, country of origin, dec 24, extra virgin olive oil, food safety, fought battle, italian minister, italian olive oil, luca, norms, olive oil producers, olives, standard bearer, tonnes, virgin olive oil, year end, zaia
Posted in Business |
December 24th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
What… It took 15 years to clearly state that Italian olive oil was actually made in Italy? A complete disgrace. For 15 years consumers around the world have been conned into buying olive oil that they thought was made in Italy as it was labelled as such but in fact the oil was made elsewhere (mainly Spain) and blended in Italy. Now they are taking the moral high ground. How dare they! They encouraged this practice so they could buy cheaper Spanish and North African oil and pass it off as something else to increase margins. Now they are “the standard bearer” Where can I find the detail of this new law? I’d love to read the detail. For example how much foreign oil can be in the blend before the real country of origin needs to be stated on the label? 10%, 50% what?
I’ll believe it when I see it.