How Can We Make Chinese Consumers like Table Olive: A Review and Some Suggestions to the Researchers

Abstract

Why table olive is still not popular with Chinese consumers after its introduction to China for more than 50 years? As scientific output can reflect the applications of their study objects, to showcase the situation of Chinese table olive studies and to find out the possible answers to this question, we performed statistical analyses based on the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E) database and the China Academic Journals Full-text Database (CJFD). Results show that the R & D of China's table olive sector are mainly focused on the introduction and cultivation of olives trees (Olea europaea L.) as well as the extraction of their high-value pharmaceutical and organic components, but rarely involve specific processing issues. However, the Chinese papers mostly report the results of table olive processing as well as the industrialization and the products with Chinese characteristics though the studies on these types of products have not been carried out in a comprehensive and systematic way. Chinese table olive researchers should consolidate the exchange and study with the non-Mediterranean countries, whose scientific output on table olives are worth of reference, such as Denmark, the UK, and the US, while maintaining communications with the scientists in Mediterranean countries.