摘要:The International Olive Council (IOC) is an international intergovernmental organization dedicated to olive oil and table olives, aiming at modernizing olive production, coordinating olive policies, improving the regulation of international trade, defending the quality of the olive sector and promoting olive oil and table olives to increase their consumption. The IOC grants recognition of laboratories and tasting panels in annual trials when they meet the conditions given in the decisions adopting the IOC certificate for laboratories for the physico–chemical testing of olive oil and laboratories for the sensory analysis of virgin olive oils. The IOC establishes analysis methods applying to olive oils and olive pomace oils for purity, quality and organoleptic assessment. The IOC elaborates guides of storage conditions for olive oils and olive pomace oils, of managing virgin olive oil tasting panels and of sensory testing laboratories. In future works, the IOC includes activities to identify analytical criteria for detecting fraud and guaranteeing the quality of olive oils and olive pomace oils.