The Olive Seed, A New Natural “Super” Ingredient

07 Dec 2016 --- The oil from the fruit of the olive tree has long been known as essential part of Mediterranean cuisine which is now popular all over the world. As well as its distinctive flavor, olive oil is also associated with many health benefits thanks to its high level of polyphenols, it has been proven to reduce cholesterol and have a positive effect on blood pressure.

Pioneering olive company Grupo Elayo is turning this traditional sector into innovation making use of the health-enhancing bioactive components found in olives for some of their newest applications. In order to do this, they extract the seeds from the fruit's hard stone using SORTEX sorting technology from Bühler. 

Based in The Andalusian province of Jaén, Spain – one of the biggest and most important olive oil growing regions in the world, Grupo Elayo was founded in 2012 by José Maria Olmo Peinado, an engineer and economist, who has worked in the olive sector for over years. Peinado says he is completely committed to innovation: “We are developing new products and applications from various parts of the olive including certain by-products – not only in the field of food, but also for the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries.” 

Since discovering that the seed within the olive stone contains up to 100 times more polyphenols and antioxidants than conventional olive oil Peinado came up with the idea of extracting the olive seeds and using them for new products and applications in the food and cosmetics industry. “In the past, we have simply discarded the stones as a waste product,” explains Peinado, “So I decided to invest in a processing line to clean, dry, crack open and sort the olive stones from the seeds. However, problems started at the sorting stage. As the seeds and the stones are practically the same color, none of the sorting technologies that we had installed were able to distinguish between them reliably,” he recalls. 

It was not possible to sort out the good seeds for further processing, however Peinado was not about to give up and he got in touch with specialists at Buhler Sortex, who have 70 years of experience in developing optical sorting solutions for various applications and industries. 

After several months of intensive trials, the London optical sorting research and applications department made a breakthrough. Using special InGaAs technology, they found that it was possible to distinguish the olive seeds from the stones as well as from the seeds with embedded stone fragments, thus laying the foundation for a successful extraction process.

InGaAs cameras (indium gallium arsenide) are based on semiconductor materials and operate in the short-wavelength infrared range (SWIR). They detect the most subtle differences in color, which are not visible to the human eye. Bühler is a pioneer in the application of these cameras in optical sorting machines and has continued to develop and improve the technology.

It was exactly what Peinado was looking for and decided to install the SORTEX optical sorting technology in his factory in Jaén. The system went into operation the very next day. The sorting process comprises a total of three stages: After the stones have been broken the mix of stone fragments and seeds is conveyed into the first chute of the sorting machine. Here, the InGaAs cameras aid the separation of the stones from the seeds, which constitute almost 90 percent of the conveyed material. The remainder – around 10 percent – then undergoes another sort on the second chute, to ensure that only flawless seeds, without any pieces of stone, are sent on for further processing.  The third chute resorts the rejected material, to recover any seeds that are still attached to the stone, so that they can be sent back to the cracking machine and then re-sorted, to minimize wastage of the valuable seed.

“The solution from Bühler impressed us in every regard,” explains Peinado. “It makes us the only company in the world capable of extracting olive seeds successfully.” A key feature of the sorting solution is the high throughput rate of around 700 kg of raw material per hour. It also produces a remarkable yield, as only one percent of the good seeds are lost. This is a crucial success factor: it takes 25 tons of olives to extract just 1,250 kg of seeds. 

An additional benefit is the exceptional level of flexibility, according to Peinado. “We can adapt the number of stages to the properties of the raw material at any time, in order to keep the yield at a consistently high level.” 

David Kinsella, R&D Director at Bühler Sortex spoke to FoodIngredientsFirst about the development of this technology: “For us the development of the core technology was a relatively long process, we worked with a supplier of the InGaAs device to specialize the technology to our needs, we then needed to develop new cameras and new image processing technology.” 

“To complete all of this work in sensible timescales we assigned a large team of engineers to a development challenge of this magnitude, this team was cross-functional and included expertise in optics, electronics, software development, system architecture and mechanical design,” he explains. 

“We use this ‘engine’ in lots of different applications,” Kinsella noted. “When we tackle a project like this we look to build a common platform that can be easily customized and used for different commodities. Most of the time the customization is relatively basic, however in some cases we need to do something a little bit special. BioVision is a good example of this.”

Bühler Sortex are continuously developing new technologies for all commodities, Kinsella added: “We constantly strive to offer new tools to our customers that enable them to meet stringent quality and safety standards, exacting specification of their customers as well as gaining a competitive edge.”

Grupo Elayo is currently working on developing new products based on the olive seeds, such as bread energy bars or snacks, where the olive seeds can be used in a similar way to pumpkin seeds. Peinado has also developed a procedure for extracting highly concentrated oil from the seeds. This oil offers greater health benefits than conventional olive oil, as it contains a much higher concentration of polyphenols and antioxidants.

“Small quantities of this kernel oil could be used for cosmetics, functional foods, or medical applications such as therapy for joint pains or the treatment of burns,” notes Peinado. Extensive testing is currently underway, to find out even more about the bioactive compounds contained in the oil. And that's not all: the seeds, which boast high levels of fiber, can also be used to produce flour, which can then be added to baked goods, such as bread or pizza dough.

by Elizabeth Kenward