Food quality in terms of merchandise checks

Foods quality control finds a particular application when international tra de takes place, as checks are mandatory to ensure the quality and identity of traded goods. In order to carry out this type of check, for almost all f ood types it has become necessary to produce laws, or Community Regulations which, on the one hand impose (for the product) purity and composition req uirements, thresholds attained mainly by the latest regulations on labellin g, and on the other hand provide the tools for a detailed analytical evalua tion through the use of analytical methods of recognised value. In particul ar, for one of these foods, namely olive oil, there has been considerable p rogress in this area. In this paper, the history, development and recent tr end of olive oil quality control from the Customs point of view are describ ed in detail.