`Spain Goes Beyond Extra Virgin - Olive Oil Times
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enEnglishfrFrançaiselελληνικάdeDeutscheitItalianozh-CN中文ptPortuguêsesEspañoltrTürkçehrHrvatskija日本語hiहिंदी

Spain Goes Beyond Extra Virgin

By Curtis Cord
Jun. 9, 2011 06:25 UTC
Claudio Peri

In his open­ing remarks Tuesday in Córdoba, Association 3E founder Claudio Peri said the fact that Interprofesional del Aceite de Oliva Español, the world’s largest olive oil group, had taken on his ​“tiny” olive oil qual­ity ini­tia­tive not just sig­nif­i­cant, but ​“a rev­o­lu­tion.”

Organizing the annual meet­ing for the first time, Interprofessional demon­strated its con­sid­er­able strength, attract­ing food indus­try pro­fes­sion­als, sci­en­tists, edu­ca­tors and press from through­out the world to Córdoba this week for a vig­or­ous pro­gram cen­tered around the sub­ject of pre­mium olive oil pro­duc­tion, eval­u­a­tion, appli­ca­tion and pro­mo­tion.

The five-year trav­el­ing event has found a stun­ning stage in Córdoba, the beau­ti­ful city in Andalusia her­alded for its rich cul­tural her­itage and sur­rounded by rolling hills of sun­flow­ers and olive groves. At the same time, Spanish olive oil, already the world leader in terms of olive oil pro­duc­tion, has staked its claim to lead the charge for higher qual­ity and shape its dia­logue.

Spain has its rea­sons. Suffering from a pro­longed pric­ing cri­sis, its mas­sive olive oil sec­tor is run­ning out of options. Their tanks filled with the bounty of the sec­ond-biggest year ever in terms of olive oil pro­duc­tion vol­ume, pro­duc­ers here have been sell­ing their hard-earned prod­uct for less than it cost to pro­duce. Most blame an unbal­anced and out­dated dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem that places too much influ­ence in the hands of a few pow­er­ful dis­trib­u­tors, and gro­cers who use olive oil as a loss leader to draw in cus­tomers with unsus­tain­able prices.

Snubbed by the European Commission that has repeat­edly rejected calls for reim­burse­ments for keep­ing stock in tanks until pric­ing lev­els have a chance to improve, the region’s grow­ers also face the expi­ra­tion of the mar­ket-tilt­ing sub­si­dies and a lev­el­ing of the field with up-and-com­ing pro­duc­ers in Chile, Australia and the United States.

Taking on the Beyond Extra Virgin con­fer­ence is part of a larger and sus­tained ini­tia­tive to teach con­sumers to appre­ci­ate the dif­fer­ences between types of olive oil and pay more for higher qual­ity char­ac­ter­is­tics. As the mar­ket giant, Spain has the cul­tural, sci­en­tific and indus­trial resources to take the lead­ing role in con­vey­ing infor­ma­tion about olive oil qual­ity to con­sumers world­wide and it has the most to gain.

Speaking on the con­fer­ence open­ing day the strate­gies direc­tor of the Culinary Institute of America, Greg Drescher, explained how his California cam­pus cre­ates value by high­light­ing pre­mium olive oils with inno­v­a­tive pre­sen­ta­tions and pair­ings. Well-known Spanish chef Maria Jose San Roman demon­strated the prepa­ra­tion of her Tapas dishes, drip­ping with selected regional olive oils, that have made her Alicante restau­rant famous.

Speakers on day two of the con­fer­ence have been shar­ing research and opin­ions on con­sumer per­cep­tions of olive oil qual­ity char­ac­ter­is­tics and the def­i­n­i­tion of pre­mium olive oil.

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