# A Full Technological Traceability System for Extra Virgin Olive Oil
## 3 Results and Discussion
### Economic Analysis
The trend of the two cost curves shows an increase in function of the production per  
Figure 11: Productivity of the olive harvesting yard, with or without TTS application, as a function of olive production per tree. Figure 10: Relationship between gross time of the TTS application and olive production per tree. tree. Considering the TTS application, the cost varied from a minimum of 16.42 \(\upxi\) tree\({}^{-1}\) to a maximum of 34.44 \(\upxi\) tree\({}^{-1}\), with an average of 21.46 (\(\pm 3.78\)) \(\upxi\) tree\({}^{-1}\). Figure 13 compares the costs per kg of oil produced per tree (yield of olives in oil equal to 16.73%) with the EVOO market price. For very low olive production, the costs increased to the point of exceeding the olive oil price, highlighting the poor economic sustainability of both curves for production lower than 9-10.5 kg tree\({}^{-1}\). Below these values, the impact of the TTS application also became heavier, reaching an incidence of over 10% (Figure 14). For olive production exceeding 30 kg\({}^{-1}\), this incidence fell below 5%, making the TTS application highly sustainable. Figure 12: Harvesting cost with and without TTS application as a function of olive production per tree. Figure 13: Comparison between harvesting cost, with or without TTS, and the EVOO market price as a function of olive production per tree. A study by [PERSON] et al. [6], evidenced how the consumers are becoming very attentive and inclined towards new technologies that can guarantee traceability, willing to spend up to 17.8% more than the conventional sale price for one bottle of EVOO. This means that with regard to the results obtained, even when the incidence of the TTS application is higher (15.5%; i.e., low olive production), this remain below the reference percentage mentioned above. The impact on the potential price increase of the olive oil due to the application of the TTS is therefore economically sustainable and acceptable to the final consumer. Moreover, considering an average production per tree such as the one examined, the incidence of the TTS application drops below 5%, making this surplus cost negligible and highly sustainable. As reported by [PERSON] et al. [6], the implementation of the QR-B traceability system at the agricultural production level has a more significant percentage of cost increases for the EVOO per bottle (27.12%), while by consortium and industrial levels, the percentage costs decrease considerably, with values equal to 2.01% and 0.03%, respectively. Therefore, for these production levels, the QR-B system always appears below 17.8% (the additional price that consumers were willing to pay, for the integration of TTS infotracing). The proposed TTS infotracing system can potentially bring benefits to both consumers and producers. Generally speaking, the consumer will be able to obtain EVOO full traceability and additional information. This system represents an excellent solution to guarantee reliability, transparency and security, in particular against fraud [6]. The information flow can be tracked by RFID and the additional aid of a blockchain system. Although such technologies potentially offer very trustable levels of safety against the possibility to modify the inserted data, there is always the possibility to physically counterfeit the products along the chain or, for example, to insert fake information in first place that will be encapsulated and carried along the entire chain by the blockchain system [16]. The potential impact of the proposed system, as always with these technologies, is to try to reduce as much as possible, but unfortunately not to eliminate, the possibility to fake the information with minimal additional economic impact value (the possibility to add useful information, e.g., for product storytelling). Moreover, the TTS can be potentially useful to identify punctual points to characterize and control the products through analytical DNA-based methods. This may lead to a reduction of their random use.