About our Laboratory
The Sensory Εvaluation Laboratory of Crete, was established in 2007 and certified by ESYD for the Sensory Evaluation of Virgin Olive Oil (Greek certification body). The certificate is available here
It is located at “Tria Monastiria” area of Rethymnon, in Crete, Greece.
Our modern lab is fully equipped so to meet the strict standards of IOC and EU legislation with individual tasting cabins for our team of tasters, storage rooms with controlled environment for the samples, and a modern “Seminar’s hall” for our training courses.
The lab itself as well as the trained and experienced team of tasters, are certified according to ISO 17025 by the national certification system (ESYD) for olive oil sample evaluation and test report of virgin olive oils.
Our sensory evaluation panel, has twelve, carefully selected tasters who have successfully passed the respected courses by certified trainers of IOC. They are working voluntarily and apart from their extended experience on olive oil quality and sensory evaluation, they are highly skilled and passionate also in the cultivation, extraction and marketing of Olive Oil.
Scientific supervisor and panel leader of our lab is Μrs Germanaki, who is an agronomist with long experience in olive oil quality evaluation. In addition, ms Germanaki is a well-known judge in various international olive oil competitions (USA, Italy, Israel, Greece. UK etc)
Certifications of our Lab: Hellenic Accreditation System ISO 17025
Services and activities
With an extensive experience for over 30 years, in olive oil quality, our main goal is to support, evaluate and promote the quality of extra virgin olive oil through a variety of activities and services.
Organoleptic evaluation of virgin olive oils for issue a test report for the classification category (Extra virgin, Virgin or Lampante)
We support company’s and individual profecionals (olive millers , bottlers, traders etc)
- with in-depth sensory evaluation of their samples, including “spider/radar diagram”
- Sensory evaluation of samples before bottling
- Analysing the core-cause of possible defects
- instruct them accordignly
We organise seminar, webinars and educational courses with our highly skilled partners, mainly around the olive tree and the olive oil with extensive coverage of all the levels (cultivation, fertilizing, irrigation, pest control, harvesting, extraction, storage, bottling, marketing and of course quality evaluation)
We collaborate with Greek authorities, Educational institutes and Association, for the purposes of research, training and for promote the quality excellence in EVOO
We participate in a variety of local and international competitions as judges or panel leaders (USA, Israel, Italy, Greece, UK etc)
We organise the Cretan Olive Oil competition (Cretan OOC), since 2015, in collaboration with the Cretan Prefecture
Cretan Olive Oil Competition (Cretan OOC)
Since 2015, Cretan Prefecture, in collaboration with our Laboratory, all Cretan authorities and Associations that are involved with the product, are organizing the Cretan Olive Oil Competition.
Cretan OOC plays a key role today, not only for reveal and promote the quality excellence, the special characteristics and the varieties of Cretan Extra Virgin Olive Oil, but also for elevate the average quality through educational activities.
Stay tuned in the Competition’s website and social media for updated info.
