From field to table for safety and traceability of European quality agrifood products: PDO Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Umbria - Pilot workshops series
A workshop to present the preliminary results of the Extra Virgin Olive Oil pilot was held on Friday 6th June by the Umbrian branch of the Italian Confederation of Farmers (CIA-Umbria) in Perugia. The hybrid event "Alliance: from field to table for safety and traceability of European quality agrifood products - the case of PDO Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Umbria" with the participation of experts and stakeholders of the PDO extra-virgin oil supply chain, and moderated by Massimo Canalicchio and Letizia Casciari.
The event was opened by Matteo Bartolini, president of CIA-Umbria and vice-president of the Italian Confederation of Farmers. Then, Stelios Arhondakis of Biocos, the partner leading the development of a Next Generation portable DNA Sequencing for Food Analysis used for the PDO extra-virgin olive oil pilot within the ALLIANCE project, delivered an introductory presentation, in almost flawless Italian, focused on the use of digital DNA analysis and blockchain for traceability of quality products.
Key speakers included two members of the ALLIANCE valorisation board, Dr. Marina Bufacchi from the National Research Council of Italy (CNR) and Silvano Di Murro, farm owner and manager. The valorisation board is a group of experts on different agri-food supply chains and/or technologies for traceability and verification who have accepted to support the validation of the project's solutions and overall framework.
Dr. Marina Bufacchi , in collaboration with Luciana Baldoni (CNR) and Franco Famiani (University of Perugia) discussed the collection, characterisation , good practices, and conservation of local olive varieties. Silvano di Murro's presentation focused instead on the valorisation and certification of PDO extra-virgin olive oil in Umbria, a topic covered also by Manuela Regni of the Technological and Agri-Food center of Umbria.
The workshop also covered key topics such as olive fields as a characteristic, a tradition, and as an economic resource of Umbria (Biancamaria Torquati, University of Perugia, and Paolo Morbidoni, President of "Strada Olio EVO DOP" Umbria), as well as technologies for validation and traceability from the field to the table (Federica Ferroni, Agricolus Srl, and Ivan Mercanti, Cybersecurity Lab of the University of Perugia). The workshop ended with final remarks by Simona Meloni, lead of the Umbria Regional Department for Agri-food policies and Tourism.
Presentations were followed by a Q&A session with producers, who also provided their feedback on the solutions developed as part of the ALLIANCE project for the extra-virgin olive oil pilot demonstrator.
Watch the video below for further information about the extra-virgin olive oil authentication and traceability use case.