LifeForOil: a project bringing innovation to oil production in Tuscany
The professionals from Dream are consultants for the project, which will be presented on October 2nd in San Casciano Val di Pesa.
We have reached the final event of the “LIFEFOROIL” project, a set of best practices on equipment and innovative management for stabilizing EVO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil) in oil mills, funded by the DEFR 2020 call (DEFR 2020—Regional Project 6 “Rural Development and Quality Agriculture”—Interventions supporting organizational innovation and production processes in the agricultural cooperation sector and forestry consortia).
On October 2nd, at 10:30 AM, at the Grevepesa Oil Mill in San Casciano Val di Pesa, a public conference will be held to share the results of the first year of experimentation with the University of Florence.
Some professors from the Florentine university and the President of the consortium will discuss the project results and future applications of the new technology. Dream, in this valuable journey for one of Tuscany’s symbolic products, served as a consultant for the technical coordination of all partners, with the specific task of overseeing the project in all its phases up to the final reporting.
The main goal of the project is to activate technological innovation processes aimed at managing the oil mill to prevent oxidation. Extra virgin olive oil is mainly composed of unsaturated fatty acids and, during storage, undergoes rancidification. However, this leads to a downgrading of the product, with negative consequences in terms of profitability. The objective of the project we are consulting for is to delay this chemical process as much as possible.
There are two key actions involved in this project:
- In the first phase, by introducing inert gas into the process, the goal is to protect the olive oil from the negative effects of the two centrifugations required for its production: horizontal centrifugation (performed with a decanter) and vertical centrifugation (performed with a separator);
- The second action focuses on optimizing the use of technical gas.