PHENOILS CONCLUDES ITS LAST ANNUITY, TESTING MORE EFFICIENT EXTRACTION TECHNOLOGIES THAT IMPROVE ANTIOXIDANTS CONTENT OF EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL

 

  • Innovative extractive techniques used were Pulsed Electric Fields (PEAV), Ultrasounds and combination of both.
  • Industrial trials have been carried out in Spain, Portugal and Italy, leading countries in the production of Extra Virgin olive oils.

 

PHENOILS has achieved testing of innovative extraction techniques at Industrial Oil mills, with the aim to produce extra virgin olive oils with higher polyphenols content, as results of last year showed, and increase in extraction yield.

 

PHENOILS, a project financed by EIT-FOOD (European Food Innovation Community), led by Acesur, and constituted in committee with the Institute of Fat (Spanish National Research Council CSIC), Fraunhofer Technological Center, University of Turin and the Portuguese company Energy Pulses Systems.

 

In this last annuity of the project, have been carried out successfully the testing of selected technologies from previous annuities at lower scales (Pulsed Electric Fields, Ultrasounds and both combined) on industrial scale, in season 2022/2023.

 

Throughout November have been completed trials at the following Oil Mills: Molino de Quirós (Acesur), Lagar do Faro (Portugal) and Gandolfo srl (Italy), with the cultivars arbequina (Spain), Cobrançosa (Portugal) and Coratina (Italy), respectfully.

First results obtained from trials in this annuity at industrial scale, point to a promising improvement in the increase of yield extraction, in line with the results obtained in previous annuities, without the application of these physical treatments in any way detracting from the physical-chemical and organoleptic qualities of Extra Virgin Olive oil obtained, as consequence, can be affirmed that trials have been executed successfully.

Those positive initial results, along with scientific information obtained from previous annuities, will allow to obtain to the consortium, conclusive results that will let to determine technique viability in extraction process of extra virgin olive oils as complementary technology with the conventional one.