How olive washing and storage affect fruit ethanol and virgin olive oil ethanol, ethyl esters and composition.

Background: Olives are stored for a short time after harvesting pending processing in the oil mills. Furthermore, olives are often washed prior to fruit storage. In this work we study how washing and storage affect fruit ethanol content and the effect on virgin olive oil ethanol content and quality.

How 'ground-picked' olive fruits affect virgin olive oil ethanol content, ethyl esters and quality.

Background: Olives dropped on the ground naturally sometimes are not separated from those fresh and healthy collected from the tree for harvest and processing. In this work we compared the quality, ethanol content and bioactive components of virgin olive oils from ground-picked olives, tree-picked fruits and their mixture.

Results: Ground-picked olives produced 'Lampante' virgin olive oils; these are of a lower quality category, because of important alterations in chemical and sensory characteristics.

Ethanol in Olive Fruit. Changes during Ripening.

Ethanol is one of the precursors of ethyl esters, the virgin olive oil quality parameter for the "extra" category recently adopted by the European Union and International Olive Oil Council. Although ethyl ester content has great importance for virgin olive oil classification, the origin of ethanol is not clear. A possible source of ethanol may be the olive fruit itself while it remains on the tree.