The demand for organic olive oil has increased over the years. Australia has increased the import of organic olive oil from the Mediterranean region to meet this demand. However, in addition to the imports, Australia is also increasing its domestic supply by growing more olives and processing them.
The National Association for Sustainable Agriculture, Australia (NASAA), in its effort to guide the manufacturers of organic olive oil, developed an information sheet for organic olive oil production standards. According to the Association, Organic Olive Oil should be produced using the following means:
- Procurement: The olives must be procured from an organic olive producer and a copy of the certification for the same should be attached with the olive consignment. The organic olives should be stocked separately from normal olives and visible labels should be placed on the bins to mark the organic olives.
- Cleaning: The organic olives must be cleaned thoroughly without the use of any chemicals. The cleaning equipments/machines should not contain any traces of normal olives. Further, whenever the cleaning machines are cleaned using detergents of solvents, it should be thoroughly washed with water.
- Processing: The entire processing of the olives including crushing, filtering, decanting and bottling should be done by thoroughly cleaned equipments.
Further, the organic olive oil manufacturer has to maintain the records of all the organic olives that have been purchased for making oil. He should also maintain the procurement, cleaning and processing records and use the NASSA Organic Label only after the association has verified these records.
The standards used by other associations for manufacturing organic olive oil are similar to those provided by NASAA. Detailed information on the production standards are given in Info Sheet No. PM03 circulated by the Association.
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