Table olives: types and trade preparations

Table olives have been consumed by the humankind for centuries. As the olive fruits are not edible when freshly collected, mainly due to their bitter taste caused by the glucoside oleuropein, almost every country that produces olives has developed a particular method to prepare the olives while removing bitterness. The more common methods include either a stage in brine, to dilute the bitter compounds, or an alkaline treatment with NaOH, to hydrolyze it. This is followed by a fermentation driven by lactic acid bacteria, yeasts, or both groups of microorganisms during the brining step. The different possibilities have provoked a great variation in the final products, which makes their classification difficult. This chapter is aimed to present the classification of table olives as well as the most important preparation systems.