Multidisciplinary Approach to Characterizing the Fingerprint of Italian EVOO

Abstract

Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) is characterized by its aroma and other sensory attributes. These are determined by the geographical origin of the oil, extraction process, place of cultivation, soil, tree varieties, and storage conditions. In the present work, an array of metal oxide gas sensors (called S3), in combination with the SPME-GC-MS technique, was applied to the discrimination of different types of olive oil (phase 1) and to the identification of four varieties of Garda PDO extra virgin olive oils coming from west and east shores of Lake Garda (phase 2). The chemical analysis method involving SPME-GC-MS provided a complete volatile component of the extra virgin olive oils that was used to relate to the S3 multisensory responses. Furthermore, principal component analysis (PCA) and k-Nearest Neighbors (k-NN) analysis were carried out on the set of data acquired from the sensor array to determine the best sensors for these tasks and to assess the capability of the system to identify various olive oil samples. k-NN classification rates were found to be 94.3% and 94.7% in the two phases, respectively. These first results are encouraging and show a good capability of the S3 instrument to distinguish different oil samples.

k-NN and k-NN-ANN Combined Classifier to Assess MOX Gas Sensors Performances Affected by Drift Caused by Early Life Aging

“…S3 is a device developed by the collaboration of Sensor Lab at the University of Brescia and Nasys S.r.l., a spin-off of the same University. S3 was previously used in numerous studies with considerable success; particularly, it has been applied to the field of food technology and quality control [26][27][28]. S3 consists of an electronic part to manage the signal, an element that allows its connection to the internet, a pump to bring the volatile compounds to the heart of the instrument from an autosampler HT2010H (HTA s.r.l., Brescia, Italy).…”

An Array of MOX Sensors and ANNs to Assess Grated Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese Packs’ Compliance with CFPR Guidelines

“…The small sensors system (S3) device used in the present work has been completely designed and constructed at SENSOR Laboratory (University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy) in collaboration with NASYS S.r.l., a spin-off of the University of Brescia. It has been used in many applications [26][27][28]. Being an electronic nose-like device, the S3 comprises MOX gas sensors as sensing elements; in this case, the number of sensors was 8.…”

A Social Analysis of the Olive Oil Sector: The Role of Family Business

“…Small and medium firms are oriented to produce a significantly lower amount of olive oil to preserve the quality of the product, with a customer target typically near to the production place [24]. Consumers are oriented to choose agricultural products coming from the country in which they live [25] and Italian EVOO is a globally well-known product [26]. The olive-oil sector is highly characterized by the presence of family business [27] and for this reason, it is worth studying the existence of the effect of a "family business brand" [28] on consumers' perceptions.…”