The initiatives will take place on October 4 and 11 at the Limarí Campus of the ULS, where important actors from the olive sector in the Coquimbo Region will attend.

More than 30 olive growers in the region will receive tools to optimize their production and olive oil extraction processes within the framework of the FIC project "Functional Prospecting of Regional Olive Oil", executed by the University of La Serena and financed by the Regional Government from Coquimbo.

These are two workshops where the beneficiaries, prior to a diagnosis carried out by experts, will receive recommendations to increase the quality of their olive oils, with emphasis on the increase and protection of the minority components associated with their sensory and nutritional quality.

The events will take place this October 04th and 11th at the Limarí Campus of the University of La Serena and will have the presence of important actors from the productive sector, as well as students from the Agronomic Engineering careers of the ULS and Agroindustry of the CFT of the Coquimbo Region.

The project

The project “Functional prospecting of regional olive oil” aims to carry out a functional chemical-analytical analysis of regional olive oils in order to enhance their quality and, consequently, their marketing to new markets.

In this regard, the director of the project and academic of the ULS Department of Chemistry, Fabiola Jamett, explains that “what we are looking for is to find these minority components that are only found in the highest quality oils and that give it the power as a nutritional and functional food, that is, with a positive selective effect on one or several functions of the body, reducing the risk of suffering from a disease, and once we find them, see how we can protect them for consumption and/or make a variation, so that can be sold in another way and can go to other markets, for example, the cosmetic area, which requires the highest quality oils.”

The initiative, financed by the Regional Government through the Innovation Fund for Regional Competitiveness (FIC-R), has a budget of $200 million allocated to research, the purchase of specialized equipment for the analysis of compounds and the implementation of an online platform for organoleptic evaluations (tastings) of olive oils.

Written by Daniela Pulido, FIC Project "Functional Prospecting of Regional Olive Oil"