Note on olive oil selection.
AVPA has created the international competition of " World Edible Oils” and has been working with the Technical Center of the Olive Tree in Aix-en-Provence for twenty years to make the selection of olive oils entered in the contest.
We are honored to have been the subject of a new scientific study published in Food Control on May 22nd, 2023 by Elsevier following the first study in November 2020 that compared positively our AVPA contest to other olive oil competitions.
Below is a brief summary of the AVPA selection method which is the subject of this new scientific article.
The objective of the AVPA contest is to award medals in a balanced and equitable way to all types of oils, from intense green fruity to light ripe fruity without forgetting oils with an "old-fashioned taste"
For this, we apply a method allowing mathematical treatment based on the notes of tasters respecting the following points:
• Use of a reduced number of non-redundant and unambiguous parameters for the description of olive oils;
• Balancing tasters' grades to homogenize all ratings and reduce personal trends;
• Treatment of results by the statistical method in three-dimensional space to avoid threshold effects on limits between categories;
• Classification and selection of oils before distribution into the categories defined presentation of results;
• Verification of the balance of the awarding of prizes by category posterior.
The parameters evaluated by the tasters are 6 in number:
• Aromatic intensity (I), rated out of 10
• Aromatic harmony (H), rated out of 10
• Bitterness intensity (A), rated out of 10
• The intensity of the ardency (or pungent) (P), rated out of 10
• Aromatic maturity, denoted from 0% (very green) to 100% (very ripe) (M).
• The intensity of any defects, scored out of 10 (maximum defect only) (D)
To process the results by statistical analysis in three dimensions, these six raw parameters are grouped into three parameters for the three axes as follows:
• the aromatic note (N), denoted on20, the first axis, includes three parameters: the aromatic intensity (I), the aromatic harmony (H), and the intensity of the maximum defect (D), according to the formula: N = (0.50 x I) + (0.50 x H) + 10 - D
• the structure note (S), denoted on 10, second axis, which groups two parameters the intensity of bitterness (A) and the intensity of spiciness (P) according to the formula:
S = ((0.62 x A) + (0.38 x D) + MAX(A; (P)) /2.
NB For the structure the bitterness is preponderant because it is more permanent than the spiciness in the bottles of olive oil
• The aromatic maturity remains the same, from 0 to 100%, and forms the third axis.
Read the article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956713523001767