Analytical control of food is of fundamental importance; it allows us to guarantee that the products we consume every day are safe and genuine. In these last few years, European Community norms and trade agreements between suppliers and customers have become more and more restrictive with the aim of protecting consumers.
From here the importance of having a laboratory that carries out the analyses foreseen by the norms relating to olive oil, such as acidity, spectrophotometry UV, fatty acids, sterols, etc… (reg. CE 2568/91 and successive modifications) in order to determine the products are genuine and analyses of contaminants that can be present due to environmental pollution, also derived from anthropic activities (reg. 1881/2006 and successive modifications) for example IPA, phytosanitary residues used in the treatment of the plants (reg. Ce 149/2008 and successive modifications) or released for migration from plastic materials used as containers, for example Phthalates.
The main processes of the chemical laboratory of Castel del Chianti S.p.A are represented by chemical analyses carried out on samples of oil to be purchased (informative samples received from several suppliers of the company), of acquired oil to unload (comparison between the analyses of the acquired samples and supplied goods) oil ready to load for the customer (issuing with certificate of analysis for the customer) and on stored oils in the warehouse in order to follow the evolution of some parameters that over time are modified (spectrophotometry UV, peroxides, piropheophytin A). In order to carry out these checks, the laboratory is equipped with the most sophisticated machinery (gas chromatographs, triple quadruple gas mass, HPLC, spectrophotometer and other scientific instrumentation) and qualified staff who are always up-to-date on new analytic techniques, new methods of analysis, norms and problems of the sector.
The head of the laboratory is part of a group of chemical experts of the firm belonging to the category associations Federolio and Assitol, as well as representatives of private laboratories, which meets in order to face several olive oil themes and to organise ring tests and experimentation on analytical methods.
Every year the laboratory participates in one or more correlation circuits (inter-laboratory ring test organized by SSOG and DGF) in order to control the reliability of the analytical results issued.
The processes of carrying out the analyses is part of the know-how of the Laboratory and are described in the specific Technical Instructions of execution analysis (see reg. Cee 2568/91 and succ. mod. PO01).