From Japan or Australia, wherever in the world he is, thanks to Progetto Certo, the consumer holding a bottle of Apulian EVO oil in his hands will be able to make a journey of thousands of kilometers with a simple gesture, without moving from the point where it is located, and arrive directly in the oil mill where that bottle was produced and then in the olive grove where the olives that gave life to the bottled extra virgin olive oil were harvested.
Not only. Of that oil, by scanning the QR Code on the label, you will be able to know the nutraceutical values, the organoleptic composition, every characteristic that makes that product unique, inextricably linked to the territory of origin and the way in which it was produced. That same consumer, from Japan or Australia, the United States or Scotland, will have a guide available to taste in the best way the Evo di Puglia oil produced in the land of Bari, in the province of Foggia, in Salento or in the BAT, so as to understand what generates that particular flavor.
In three and a half years of work, Puglia dell’olio, with the participation of all its territories, has developed a method of analysis, certification and promotion of its extra virgin olive oil thanks to “Certo”, financed by the Development Program Rural (PSR) 2014-2020 Puglia, Measure 16 “Cooperation”, Submeasure 16.2 “Support for pilot projects and the development of new products, practices, processes and technologies”.
“Certo” has developed a system of certification and geographical characterization of extra virgin olive oil capable, literally, of identifying “the fingerprints” of Apulian EVO. The objective is twofold: on the one hand to fight counterfeiting, on the other to provide consumers with a series of precise, timely information that can be used immediately digitally via a smartphone. The consumer will be able to discover the origin of truly Apulian extra virgin olive oil; he will be able to know where the olives were harvested and which mill was used for milling; what are the organoleptic and nutritional characteristics that make that product unique and authentic. These are the objectives of the “CERTO” project: to offer certainties against the phenomenon of food counterfeiting; take a decisive step forward on the certification and geographical characterization of Puglia’s extra virgin olive oils; equip EVO producers with tools and a system capable of “enhancing” all the added value of a product that is among the best in the world for taste and healthiness.
With the support of the oil mills and PO partners of the project, a representative database of regional olive production was defined, with a mapping of the profiles of the oils of the varieties currently in production, with particular reference to the Apulian PDOs. The application of new analysis methods, such as Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (NMR) and Near InfraRed Spectroscopy (NIR), has made it possible to carry out an accurate characterization of the product, guaranteeing its authenticity on a molecular scale. These methods support modern analytical methods for controlling the quality of oils, and will therefore become the element of innovation for regional olive growing organizations to guarantee the safety, origin and typicality of regional production. The information is also made accessible thanks to an intelligent label based on QRcode/augmented reality to simplify the approach with the consumer.
