Italy, Turkey, Brazil Lead the Way at 'EVO IOOC' Awards

The 9^th EVO IOOC Italy con­cluded with an award cer­e­mony on June 15^th in the his­toric city the­atre of Palmi, Calabria.

Antonio G. Lauro, pres­i­dent of the inter­na­tional olive oil con­test, announced the win­ners of the Best in Show and Best in Country cat­e­gories and the recip­i­ents of the spe­cial awards.

The event, co-hosted by the man­ag­ing direc­tor, Stefania Reggio, saw the par­tic­i­pa­tion of pro­duc­ers, sec­tor experts and olive oil enthu­si­asts, who enjoyed guided tast­ings of the win­ning prod­ucts.

Nestled on the Violet Coast, over­look­ing the Tyrrhenian Sea, Palmi was also the set­ting for the sen­sory eval­u­a­tions per­formed by the panel of judges at the CapoSperone Resort facil­i­ties in May.

Twenty-five expe­ri­enced tasters from 11 coun­tries assessed 671 entries sub­mit­ted from 28 coun­tries, includ­ing 592 extra vir­gin olive oils and 79 fla­vored olive oils.

Italy sub­mit­ted the most entries and was the most awarded coun­try, with 185 par­tic­i­pat­ing brands and 139 medals awarded. Turkey fol­lowed with 102 brands sub­mit­ted and 77 medals.

The Brazilian pro­duc­ers par­tic­i­pated with 69 brands, of which 63 received an award. Competing with 88 brands, Greece received 60 medals, fol­lowed by Spain, which par­tic­i­pated with 56 brands and took home 38 medals.

The list of win­ners includes Portugal (23 medals), Israel (20 medals), Tunisia (19 medals), Argentina (11 medals), Croatia (nine medals), Jordan (five medals), Algeria (four medals), the United States, South Africa, Morocco (three medals each), Saudi Arabia, China, Lebanon (two medals each), France, Malta and Slovenia (one medal each).

“In recent times, evi­dent and impact­ful changes mainly due to the con­se­quences of cli­mate change and global warm­ing have occurred, pos­ing com­plex chal­lenges to farm­ers in the tra­di­tional olive grow­ing coun­tries,” Lauro told Olive Oil Times.

“On the other hand, we are also wit­ness­ing an increase in pro­duc­ing coun­tries and new com­peti­tors who are vig­or­ously enter­ing the global high-qual­ity mar­ket,” he added. ​“All this leads us to affirm that extra vir­gin olive oil no longer has bor­ders or mas­ters, but only excel­lent pro­tag­o­nists.”

The orga­niz­ers revealed some data regard­ing the com­pet­ing prod­ucts dur­ing the award event.

Thirty per­cent of the entries were organic and came from a region with a cer­ti­fied geo­graph­i­cal indi­ca­tion, includ­ing a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) or Protected Geographical Indication (PGI).

Over half (55.3 per­cent) of the extra vir­gin olive oils were blends of two or more vari­eties. Monovarietals com­prised almost 45 per­cent of the total, rep­re­sent­ing more than 180 vari­eties.

Lauro also high­lighted a recent nov­elty intro­duced by the con­test: the col­lab­o­ra­tion with a lead­ing research orga­ni­za­tion.

Last year, the man­age­ment of the EVO IOOC Italy signed a pre­lim­i­nary col­lab­o­ra­tion agree­ment with the Center for Olive, Fruit and Citrus Crops of the Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA-OFA).

Per the agree­ment, pro­duc­ers who reg­is­ter in the con­test can par­tic­i­pate in the research line ​‘Traceability of the world’s extra vir­gin olive oils,’ the results of which will be pub­lished in inter­na­tional sci­en­tific pub­li­ca­tions.

“This is an exten­sive project con­cern­ing the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of the extra vir­gin olive oils based on the par­tic­i­pa­tory research approach,” Lauro said. ​“We are pleased to be among the key play­ers of this study, together with Enzo Perri, the direc­tor of CREA-OFA, and the olive oil com­pa­nies.”

A list of results for the 2024 EVO IOOC Italy is avail­able on the contest’s web­site and social media.