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 (PEF), 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 Instituto de la Grasa (Spanish National Research Council CSIC), Fraunhofer Technological Center, University of Turin and the Portuguese company EnergyPulses Systems.

In this last annuity, industrial trials have been carried out successfully, testing PEF and US technologies.

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

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. Application of these physical treatments did not detract any physical-chemical and organoleptic qualities of Extra Virgin Olive oil obtained.

These positive results, along with scientific information obtained from previous annuities, will allow to conclude about the economic viability of these technologies for the processing and production of extra virgin olive oils.