Providing information about the goals of the OASIS Project, Aegean Olive and Olive Oil Exporters' Association President Emre Uygun underlined that the main goal is to train SMEs operating in the olive and olive oil production sector in the Aegean Basin on sustainable practices, support technologies that will increase raw material efficiency, and develop strategies that will create resilience against climate change and external factors.
A competitive marketplace will be created
Uygun, who informed that Turkey ranked first in the world with a yield of 2024 thousand tons in table olive production in the 25/750 season, and second in the world after Spain with a yield of 475 thousand tons in olive oil, said, “With the OASIS Project, it is aimed to strengthen the food supply chain, reduce production costs and create a competitive marketplace for both businesses and consumers by focusing on reducing food waste and optimizing resource use throughout the production process of businesses with pressing facilities in the table olive and olive oil sector. We invite our olive and olive oil businesses with table olive processing and olive oil pressing units to take part in this project.”
In the “Innovative and Sustainable Clustering in the Olive Value Chain (OASIS) Project”, companies sUygun, who stated that a sustainability assessment will be conducted and current resource efficiencies will be analyzed, continued as follows: “Free training and consultancy services will be provided to support them in making their production processes more efficient according to the current situation analysis. Training topics will include topics such as circular production, resource efficiency, digital transformation, green transformation, smart agricultural technologies. SMEs with good practice examples will be determined and their promotion and awareness will be provided throughout the EU. Matching activities will be carried out between SMEs and institutions participating from Italy, Spain and Turkey. The project target group consists of a total of 50 SMEs operating in the table olive and olive oil production sector, 150 SMEs from each country. Activities to be carried out for the target group within the scope of the project include researching 10 previously implemented and completed good practice examples and presenting them to SMEs as a sample roadmap, organizing 150 different trainings on various themes for 25 SMEs, determining the measures to be taken to prevent food waste and increase efficient resource use, ensuring the adaptation of the use of new technologies and creating a more competitive and resilient market environment that will reduce production and shipment costs by developing new strategies in this field.”
“Innovative and Sustainable Clusters in the Olive Value Chain”, which was awarded support by the European Innovation Council and the SME Executive Agency (EISMEA) under the Single Market Programme (SMP COSME) (OASIS) The project is carried out in collaboration with the consortium of İzmir Agricultural Technology Center (İTTM) under the coordination of İzmir Commodity Exchange from Turkey, Centro Tecnológico Nacional de la Conserva – CTNC (National Food and Canning Technology Center) and Camara De Comercio e Industria Italiana Para Espana – CCIS (Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Spain) from Spain, CIHAEM Bari (Mediterranean Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Bari) and Unioncamere Puglia (Union of Chambers of the Puglia Region) from Italy.
Source: HORECA TREND and Aegean Exporters' Associations
