`Chile's Olisur Continues International Expansion - Olive Oil Times
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enEnglishfrFrançaiselελληνικάdeDeutscheitItalianozh-CN中文ptPortuguêsesEspañoltrTürkçehrHrvatskija日本語hiहिंदी

Chile's Olisur Continues International Expansion

By Charlie Higgins
Nov. 19, 2012 11:57 UTC


Olisur Founder Alfonso Swett

Award-win­ning Chilean olive oil man­u­fac­turer Olisur is aim­ing to expand its inter­na­tional mar­ket, which already includes the United States and Canada. According to Just-Food, the com­pany has received its first order from Korea and is now devel­op­ing its pres­ence in the highly com­pet­i­tive mar­kets of Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Since its found­ing in 2001, Olisur has cap­tured the atten­tion of North American mar­kets with its inno­v­a­tive grow­ing tech­niques and sus­tain­able farm­ing prac­tices and the qual­ity of its prod­ucts. Esquire food critic Ryan D’Agostino wrote last year, “[Olisur’s] Santiago Limited Edition oil is, it should be announced, deli­cious.”

Olive Oil Timeswrote about the growth of Olisur in 2010 in an inter­view with founder Alfonso Swett. When asked about the rea­son­ing behind the company’s avant-garde approach in an indus­try so steep in tra­di­tion, Swett pointed to mar­ket demand. ​“We must pro­duce for other coun­tries, and they request sus­tain­abil­ity,” he explained.

Olisur cur­rent mar­kets three tiers of qual­ity (extra vir­gin, pre­mium and lim­ited edi­tion) sold under the brand names Santiago, Ecolive and O‑Live & Co. The USA and Canada are the company’s biggest buy­ers, but dis­trib­u­tors in Asia, South America and Europe have also jumped on board.

Japan has imported Olisur prod­ucts for three years and con­tin­ues to be an impor­tant mar­ket in Asia, though South Korea is also on the hori­zon.

“Asia is a very impor­tant poten­tial mar­ket for us,” said Marta Bonomo, Olisur’s export man­ager

Europe and Australia pose the great­est chal­lenges for mar­ket expan­sion, albeit for dif­fer­ent rea­sons. Australia and New Zealand both have fast-grow­ing domes­tic mar­kets and are home to an increas­ingly dis­cern­ing con­sumer base mov­ing towards ​“more expen­sive higher qual­ity oils.”

Europe, on the other hand, already has a sat­u­rated mar­ket due to the high pro­duc­tion vol­ume in Spain and Italy.

“Every mar­ket has dif­fer­ent char­ac­ter­is­tics and dif­fer­ent prob­lems. Our strat­egy is to diver­sify our mar­kets and to dis­tin­guish our­selves through our qual­ity and brands,” Bonomo said.


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