The effect of filtration on quality attributes of olive oils produced from Koroneiki olive drupes harvested at different maturation stages

Abstract

The olive oil, which is widely known for its nutritional value and how beneficial it is to human health, both its production and its consumption have increased rapidly in recent years. What plays a decisive role in its choice by the consumer is its good quality, which is determined by its quality characteristics. The quality characteristics of olive oil are affected by many factors, one of them is filtration, which is a controversial issue. The purpose of this study was how the quality characteristics of the olive oil are affected after filtering. For my research I used extra virgin olive oil of the Koroneiki variety from the area of Mani was used. The samples were from three harvesting time: The first was in December 2019, the middle was in January 2020 and the last was in February 2020. The qualitative characteristics which are examined were oxidative stability (by rancimat and schaal ove test), color, pigments (total content of carotenoid and chlorophyll), fatty acid methyl esters (GC-MS) and tocopherol α(HPLC). The filtration showed that some affected them positively (tocopherol increased in filtered samples), some not (fatty methyl ester and color) at all and some negatively (chlorophyll content).