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DR. RENAN TUNALIOĞLU WRITES; CAN TURKISH PEOPLE CONSUME QUALITY OLIVE OIL?

Many issues that have become a habit in the world depending on traditional methods have started to change very rapidly thanks to the limitless possibilities created by technology.

This change has manifested itself in product and service marketing as in every field. As a matter of fact, while there is a one-sided communication between the producer and the consumer in traditional marketing approach, a double-sided communication process has emerged with the opportunities provided by the developing technologies.

Thus, the traditional marketing place that aims to promote a certain product or service to the target audience through traditional methods (posters, television, newspapers and billboards, etc.) to modern marketing where modern methods (constantly renewed: digital / digital and computer network / internet) are used to make more money.

In this process, Philip Kotler’s work “A Generic Concept of Marketing” in 1972 had a great role in the transition from traditional to modern marketing, in other words from structural to functionality. This work also shelves the doctrine of “Every supply creates its own demand” in the Law of Say (Law of Markets), named after the classical economist Frenchman John Baptiste Say, in the early nineteenth century, that is, those who produce a good also produce a purchasing power sufficient to pay it.

In this context, priority is given to the logic of “produce as much goods and services as you will sell”, not “sell the goods and services you produce”. On the other hand, considering that commercial boundaries are minimized in the global economy, “quality” and “sustainability” are adopted as two important concepts in order to market the produced goods and services.

Here is parallel to these developments and changes in the world, Turkey has also differences in marketing olives and olive oil are involved. Olive cultivation, which relies on the wonderful Mediterranean ecology of the Anatolian geography, has been first life and then blood for the people living in these lands since the 4th century BC. In the early days, lighting, massage, etc. While it was used for purposes, it was started to be consumed as food for nourishment over time. Because the oil extraction techniques in the olive fruit have always continued to develop in parallel with the development of human beings, especially in Mesopotamia and Aegean civilizations.

More than forty years ago, in the early 1980s, olive oil operators, who were introduced to hydrolic or super press systems for the first time after the stone mill they have used for centuries, immediately experienced the excitement of reaching a continuous system where untouched pressing takes place. In the last decade, there is another excitement, which is the discovery of miraculous minor components in olive oil.

The quality of olive oil, which was previously determined only by acidity determination, was suddenly rediscovered with only 2-3% minor components in the olive fruit. Among these components, hydrocarbons such as Squalene, essential fatty acids such as Omega – 3 and Omega – 6 which cannot be produced by the human body itself, which must be taken from outside, phenolic substances; Polyphenols containing more than one phenol: Oleuropein and Luteolin or containing a single phenol: Polyphenols such as Hydroxytyrosol and Paracoumaric acid, moreover, substances released after oleuropein degradation such as Oleacanthal are the most important.

In a sense, these components are the quality elements that increase the value of olive oil in its commercialization in the new world order, thus increasing its price and distinguishing it from other vegetable oils.
Although Turkey’s packaged and branded extra virgin olive oil exports not being considered as adequately, compared to the current developments in the sector, Turkish olive oils come back with awards from quality competitions across the world.

Now, Turkish olive oils can be produced with minor components that are beneficial to human health, as in developed olive oil producing countries in the world. Conscious and exemplary operators who succeeded in this quality of production agree that the quality is determined not only by chemical but also by sensory analysis and that the modern marketing approach that provides integration not only in vertical but also in horizontal components of marketing. So yes, Turkish people can consume quality olive oil depending on their own preferences (income, price, taste and habits, etc.).

By Professor Dr. Renan Tunalıoğlu,

Lecturer in Agricultural Economics,

Faculty of Agriculture,

Adnan Menderes University, Aydın

About İsmail Uğural

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2 comments

  1. Kaleminize bilginize sağlık Hocam.
    Gayet bilgilendirici ve toparlayıcı bir makale olmuş.
    Ve artık “nasıl kaliteli ve de aynı zamanda ‘affordable’ zeytinyağı üretebiliriz”i tartışmaya, anlatmaya başlamamız gerek, sizlerin rehberliğinde.

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