Technological Aspects: Table Olive and Olive Oil Processing

The technological aspects related to table olives and olive oil are summarized and discussed in this chapter. There are three main trade preparations of table olives: Spanish-style olives, Californian-style olives and naturally black or turning colour olives. There are also many other traditional table olive recipes that are less known in the international market but which are specially linked with a given territory as the product of natural and cultural resources. Some traditional process will also be described and the use of starter cultures in table olive fermentation will also be discussed. Interest in the development of and use of starters for table olive fermentation is increasing as appropriate bacterial inoculation can help to achieve a more controlled process, reduce processing time and improve the organoleptic and hygienic quality of the final product. Suitable hygienic conditions to adopt during olive processing and their alterations are then considered. Moreover, the traditional and the most innovative technologies for mechanical olive oil extraction are described with particular attention given to the discussion of technical aspects and analysis of the repercussions of each processing step on the most important quality markers are subsequently discussed.

Keywords: Innovative technologies, Lactobacillus plantarum, olive fermentation, olive oil extraction systems, olive quality, olive varieties, packaging technologies, preparation of table olives, product management, sensory analysis, starter culture.