Effect of fruit stone removal on the production of virgin olive oil volatile compounds

Abstract To verify if the quantitative composition of volatiles arising from lipoxygenase pathway was affected by the olive fruit stones, oils from whole olives and from the pulp-only tissues, respectively, were submitted to gas chromatographic determination of volatile compounds extracted by dynamic head-space. Results showed different quantitative compositions for the two oil kinds because of the greater accumulation of C 6 compounds from the lipoxygenase pathway in oils obtained from de-stoned olives, which is related to serious cellular disruption observed in the crushed pulp tissues. C 5 compounds were affected by the stone removal from fruits. Furthermore, the enzymatic oxidation of linoleic acid was promoted in oils obtained after removing fruit stones because of the more significant increase of the concentrations of corresponding C 6 metabolites.