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On May 16, 2024, the Fundación del Olivar at its headquarters in Menjíbar (Jaén) hosted the 4th harmonization conference for official IOC-recognized virgin olive oil tasting panels, a must-attend event for professionals in the sector. Ibtihel Khemakhem, Head of the IOC’s Laboratory and Panel Management Section, took part in the inauguration of this year’s event, alongside Soledad Aranda, Jaén’s Regional Delegate for Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development and President of the Fundación del Olivar, and Francisco de Paula Rodríguez García, Technical Advisor to the Andalucía Administration’s Directorate General for Industry, Innovation and the Food Chain.
Ibtihel Khemakhem stressed the importance of organizing tasting panel harmonization workshops, one of the IOC’s main missions, in order to minimize discrepancies between their results, as well as improve the quality of virgin olive oils and facilitate international trade. The digital sensory analysis platform for virgin olive oils provided by the Fundación del Olivar was used during the conference.
This platform was selected by the IOC following a public call for tenders as part of the Organization’s activities to harmonize IOC-recognized tasting panels. It has already been used at three IOC-organized panel harmonization workshops with satisfactory results. The Organization has made the platform available to all its recognized tasting panels for use in their daily tasting sessions.
Click on this link to view the interview given by the IOC representative on the occasion of the harmonization conference.
