`Spain's LA Organic Targets Colombia - Olive Oil Times

Spain's LA Organic Targets Colombia

By Tom Baker
Jan. 10, 2011 09:12 UTC

By Tom Baker | Reporting from Buenos Aires

Global sales of organic prod­ucts are pre­dicted to reach $60bn over the com­ing year and although 2010 may have been a dif­fi­cult time for the European indus­try, Latin America has con­tin­ued to show healthy growth within the organic mar­ket.

It is per­haps no sur­prise then that Spanish organic olive oil brand LA Organic are reported to be increas­ing their pres­ence within Colombia.

Since October 2010, LA Organic olive oil has been avail­able to con­sumers in eight cities around the coun­try includ­ing Bogota, Medellin, Cartagena, Barranquilla, Santa Marta, Pereira, Armenia, and Manizales. Now El Pais reports that they are expand­ing to reach con­sumers in the town of Cali as well.

Company Director Elisa Alvarez, said the deci­sion to move into the Colombian mar­ket came about due to con­sumers there becom­ing more aware of the ben­e­fits of eat­ing health­ily and because there is a grow­ing demand for high qual­ity prod­ucts within the region.

And if Colombia’s tastes are becom­ing more gourmet, LA Organic should do well. Since 2004 the com­pany, owned by the Gomez de Baeza fam­ily, has been work­ing along­side local farm­ers to pro­duce high qual­ity organic olive oil in the Andalusia region of Spain. This year the Italian guide Flos Olei 2011 included LA Organic among its top 20 organic olive oils, award­ing the brand 90 points out of a pos­si­ble 97. Last year LA Organic joined forces with world-renowned French designer Philippe Stark, to cre­ate a series of pack­ag­ing designs.

But it’s the focus on pro­duc­ing qual­ity organic olive oil that Ms. Alverez believes has made it pos­si­ble for the brand to expand and to grow in pop­u­lar­ity with Colombian con­sumers, for whom the LA Organic phi­los­o­phy of mak­ing olive oil both free from arti­fi­cial ingre­di­ents and with olives grown in pes­ti­cide free groves, seems to res­onate.

In 2010 this phi­los­o­phy saw the brand not only main­tain its footholds within North America, Asia, and Australia, but it also increased its pres­ence within Europe, part­ner­ing with UK chain Waitrose, a com­pany with over 200 stores around Britain.

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Sources:

Global organic food and drink sales approach $60bn: Foodbev.com
LA Organic Expands in Colombia: El Pais
LA Organic Olive Oil

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