Monitoring of olive biophenols in 23 Olea europaea cultivars grown under the same agronomical conditions

Olive oil based products are gaining increasing interest over the past few decades and the world becomes more diet-conscious. The investigations of olive biophenols are attracting increased scientific attention so as to shed light to the diverse range of bioactivities such as antioxidant, cardioprotective, antimicrobial and anticancer [1]. Olive fruits, olive leaves, olive processing residues constitute an enticing source of these compounds [2]. Additionally, there is an observed increased demand regarding their use in foodstuffs, food additives and functional foods. As the phenolic content of olive products is significantly influenced by the tree variety, the main objective of this study was the determination of composition of the phenolic compounds in leaves, fruits and olive oil as well as in olive oil production by-products. The phenolic composition was studied in twenty-three cultivars grown in the same grove under the same agronomical and environmental conditions in an effort to examine the effects of tree cultivar and determine possible varietal indicators. These indicators could be used as tools in order to confirm the provenance of unknown samples. Towards this direction UHPLC-HRMS & HRMS/MS was employed for qualitative and quantitative purposes. The results indicated qualitative and quantitative differences in phenolic composition among cultivars. To our knowledge, this is the first study investigating the effect of olive oil variety alone to biophenols composition.

[1] Obied, H.K. et al, Analytica Chimica Acta, 2007, 603, 176 – 189.

[2] Taamalli, A. et al, Journal of Food Science, 2012, 77, R83 – 92.