'EVO International' Contest Bestows Record Number of Awards in Italy

A record num­ber of prizes were handed out at the 2020 EVO International Olive Oil Contest (EVO-IOOC), which con­cluded with an award pre­sen­ta­tion in Palmi.

The orga­niz­ers chose to hold the event in the main square of the Calabrian town in order to com­ply with local safety reg­u­la­tions, which were put in place to pre­vent the spread of Covid-19.

“This edi­tion of EVO-IOOC was def­i­nitely dif­fer­ent from the pre­vi­ous ones, more demand­ing, but in many ways very grat­i­fy­ing,” the pres­i­dent of the com­pe­ti­tion, Antonio G Lauro, told Olive Oil Times. ​“The com­plex prepa­ra­tion of the event was paid back by the sup­port and encour­age­ment of the pro­duc­ers who joined our qual­ity project.”

Over the course of the com­pe­ti­tion, 449 dif­fer­ent extra vir­gin olive oils, includ­ing 42 fla­vored oils, were sam­pled by the team of 25 judges, all of whom par­tic­i­pated from their home coun­tries. The results were live streamed from a mobile record­ing stu­dio.

“In an uncer­tain world sce­nario that we could have never imag­ined, pro­duc­ers faced new dif­fi­cul­ties and chal­lenges and yet cre­ated new ways to pro­mote and dis­trib­ute their excel­lent [prod­ucts],” Lauro said. ​“It is also for this rea­son that we have not stopped the com­pe­ti­tion and man­aged to bet­ter adapt it to the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion.”

Among the var­i­ous win­ners, selected by cat­e­gory and hemi­sphere, three Italian and two Spanish com­pa­nies received best in class awards for the Northern Hemisphere.

Brazilian pro­duc­ers earned three best in class awards. A Greek pro­ducer was awarded for the best inter­na­tional fla­vored extra vir­gin olive oil.

“These recog­ni­tions reward us for the work done and are con­fir­ma­tion of our com­mit­ment to qual­ity over the years,” said Franco Scisci, who received two gold medals and a prize for the best inter­na­tional organic in the North Hemisphere.

“Despite the dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion, over the last months we have been able to con­tinue our nor­mal work in the olive grove,” the Apulian farmer said. ​“Also, we have seen a grow­ing inter­est among con­sumers, and this sug­gests that habits are still chang­ing and more atten­tion is given to qual­ity prod­ucts.”

The com­plete list of win­ners can be found on the EVO-IOOC web­site.