Evaluation of selected physicochemical parameters of extra virgin olive oil commercialized in the Czech market and stored during a period of 5 months

Abstract

The scope of this work was to evaluate the development of selected physicochemical parameters (free acidity, peroxide value and specific extinction coefficients in ultraviolet) of extra virgin olive oil, commercialized in the Czech market and stored for a time period of 5 months (at 20 ±5 °C). The tested extra virgin olive oil samples were stored under conditions simulating domestic and commercial storage environment, in which the impact of light and headspace volume were also examined. Moreover, all the analyzed samples fell within the established "extra virgin olive oil category", thus proving their legitimacy, authentication and excellent quality. Furthermore, all the monitored physicochemical parameters were affected by the progress of the storage period, the rising volume of headspace (due to more available oxygen in the container) and exposition to light, resulting in decreasing quality of the examined extra virgin olive oil samples. In addition, the storage of extra virgin olive oil samples in dark containers reported sufficient resistance to oxidation processes up to a period of 3 months, however, after this period signs of oil quality deterioration were reported. Nevertheless, if exposition to light occurred, accelerated decrease in the quality of the extra virgin olive oil samples was observed.

Keywords

• extra virgin olive oil
• oxidation
• quality
• storage period
• storage conditions