Food traceability is synonymous with safety and consumer protection, but for us it also means highlighting the quality of our products and building a relationship of trust with our customers.
Food Traceability: EU Regulations
The EC Regulation 178/2002 (which entered into force on 1 January 2005), also known as the General Food Law Regulation, was the first to make food traceability mandatory.
The European Union recognised as a priority the ability to trace products throughout the entire production chain, in order to guarantee safety and quality, but also to ensure ever-greater transparency for consumers.
The agri-food sector has always faced the threat of counterfeiting. This phenomenon occurs globally and has very often had the world of olive oil as its protagonist. When it's not a matter of outright fraud, consumers risk running into misleading names and ambiguous laws. It hasn't always been easy to obtain clear information and distinguish a slogan from nutritional information when reading a product's label.
This is where the need for regulation arises, along with the obligation for companies to “reconstruct and trace the path of a food, feed, food-producing animal, or substance intended to be, or expected to be, incorporated into a food or feed, through all stages of production, processing and distribution”.
Food business operators must equip themselves with systems and procedures that make it possible to provide the competent authorities with all information regarding the cultivation, production, packaging, storage and preservation of every product placed on the market. Furthermore, they must be able to identify who supplied them with a product or any substance that becomes part of a food.
The internal traceability system for their products guarantees greater food safety and allows corrective action to be taken at the point in the supply chain where problems or risks arise.
Transparency on the Label
Nine years after EC Regulation 178/2002, the European Union approved Regulation No. 1169/2011 (mandatory provisions from December 2014) regarding the food information to be made available to consumers.
The founding principle in this case is consumer protection. Food traceability, in fact, also runs through the label.
For this reason, Regulation No. 1169/2011 establishes the criterion of good legibility and requires food labels to be clear and understandable, so as to enable consumers to make more informed food and dietary choices.
All information indicated must be visibly accessible. Great attention must therefore be paid to font size, spacing between letters and lines, thickness, the type of colour, the ratio between the width and height of the letters, the surface of the material, and significant contrast between the text and the background.
Mandatory Information
Among the mandatory information on food that must be provided to the end consumer, we find:
- a) the identity and composition, the properties or other characteristics of the food;
- b) the protection of consumers' health and safe use of the food, namely: – attributes related to the product's composition that may have a harmful effect on the health of certain categories of consumers; – shelf life, storage conditions and safe use; – health impact, including risks and consequences related to harmful and dangerous consumption of the food;
- c) the nutritional characteristics that allow consumers, including those who must follow a special diet, to make informed choices.
Furthermore, information provided on a voluntary basis must not be misleading and must comply with fair practices; it cannot be ambiguous or confusing; and, where necessary, must be based on relevant scientific data.
Companies are also required to indicate the batch on the label. This makes it possible to identify the lot to which a food product belongs; that is, the set of sales units produced, manufactured or packaged under practically identical circumstances.
The Batch and Oil Traceability
In the case of oil, the batch is a lot originating from previous batches of olives processed in the same way and subjected to the same transformation process. From the information indicated in the production batch, it must be possible to trace all stages of the supply chain, from the pressing of the olives to the storage of the oil, through to bottling. Each step is in fact authenticated in a digital register, which the producer is required to report to the Ministry of Agricultural Policies within six days.
The batch, together with a short supply chain and a clear label, represents the ultimate guarantee for the consumer. Oil traceability is assured. In the event of reports or requests made to the producing company, it is always possible to trace the origin batch of a bottle or tin of oil, and therefore the batch of olives from which it was obtained.
Trace Your Olio Pace Batch
With a view to guaranteeing greater accessibility and transparency, Olio Pace has chosen to offer its customers a direct channel of communication with the company. Anyone who brings our oil to their table every day can find out the identity card of each of our batches. Simply go to the page dedicated to Product Traceability and enter the batch number you want to identify to learn the detailed origin of your oil, whether bottled or tinned.
