TRACEABILITY OF OLIVE OIL BY CARBON STABLE ISOTOPES RATIO AND FATTY ACIDS COMPOSITION

Olive oil is a commodity for which high value is attached to the region of its origin. In Italy, higher prices can be asked for extra-virgin olive oils depending on the region of origin. Recently, the European law (EC Reg. 182/2009) requires the indication of the geographical origin for all extra-virgin olive oils, irrespective the protected denomination of origin (PDO) and/or protected geographic indication (PGI) of origin. Therefore, in the last few years attention has been focused on authentication methods for the geographical origin of olive oils. In this work some preliminary results on the estimation of olive oils origin by carbon isotope ratio measurements and fatty acids composition (UE Reg. 61/2011) have been obtained. Particularly, results from 80 extra virgin olive oil samples, produced during the crop year 2011, collected from Chile, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Portugal and Spain are presented and discussed.
The aim of the study was to investigate if selected olive oils produced in areas with different climatic and geological characteristics could be discriminated on the basis of carbon isotopic ratio and fatty acids composition. All data obtained were treated by means of proper chemometric procedures. Finally, as preliminary results, a good discrimination between the different selected sites was achieved.