NYIOOC Wins Waylay Economic Woes for Producers in Southern Cone

Part of our con­tin­u­ing spe­cial cov­er­age of the 2022 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

Producers from the Southern Cone – com­posed of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay – com­bined to earn 14 awards at the 2022 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, the region’s high­est total since 2019.

Half of the awards – three Gold and four Silver Awards – were earned by four pro­duc­ers from Chile. Meanwhile, two Argentine pro­duc­ers com­bined to win two Gold Awards and a Silver Award. Finally, three Uruguayan pro­duc­ers came away from the com­pe­ti­tion with a com­bined two Gold Awards and a Silver Award.

While the pro­longed drought in north­west­ern Argentina and Chile’s cen­tral val­ley impacted the 2022 har­vests in Latin America’s two largest olive oil-pro­duc­ing coun­tries, Uruguay enjoyed more favor­able con­di­tions.

However, pro­duc­ers from all three coun­tries faced chal­lenges related to con­gested global sup­ply chains and ris­ing pro­duc­tion costs. These were espe­cially felt in Argentina, where annual infla­tion has risen to 58 per­cent, and energy costs have increased sub­stan­tially.

“With these post-pan­demic years and the eco­nomic dif­fi­cul­ties that our coun­try is going through, con­tin­u­ing to pro­duce qual­ity oils with inter­na­tional recog­ni­tion makes us proud and gives us the strength to con­tinue mak­ing an effort,” Patricia Calderón, the direc­tor of Establecimiento Olivum, told Olive Oil Times.

The pro­duc­ers earned a Silver Award for a medium blend dur­ing their fourth appear­ance at the com­pe­ti­tion, in which they have won six awards.

“At Establecimiento Olivum, we pro­duce pre­mium qual­ity oils,” Calderón said. ​“For this, the qual­ity of the fruit on the farm, the early har­vest and imme­di­ate grind­ing with strict tem­per­a­ture con­trol are essen­tial.”

Situated in the north­west­ern province of San Juan, Olivum’s olive groves sprawl over 1,000 hectares at the foot of the Andes Mountains. The San Juan Valley’s unique micro­cli­mate yields Olivum’s high-qual­ity olives and pro­vides plenty of chal­lenges through­out the har­vest.

“Defining the right har­vest time is always a chal­lenge,” Calderón said. ​“The frosts that promised to be early forced us to be very effi­cient to fin­ish the har­vest before they arrived.”

“Being awarded in such a pres­ti­gious con­test and with such a rec­og­nized tast­ing panel con­firms the qual­ity we claim to achieve in our pro­duc­tion,” she added.

On the Southern Cone’s east­ern seaboard, Uruguay’s largest olive oil pro­ducer cel­e­brated its sec­ond-con­sec­u­tive award at the 2022 NYIOOC, win­ning Gold for a del­i­cate blend.

“We are very proud and hon­ored by the recog­ni­tion,” María José Morín, the mar­ket­ing man­ager at Agroland and Nuevo Manatial, which pro­duces Olivares de Rocha, told Olive Oil Times. ​“We trust these awards will help us con­quer new mar­kets.”

According to Morín, Agroland pro­duces more than 40 per­cent of all olive oil in Uruguay and is find­ing a dis­trib­u­tor in the United States. Morín cited this as one of the rea­sons the com­pany decided first to enter the com­pe­ti­tion last year.

“Therefore, we are the main stake­hold­ers in con­tin­u­ing to posi­tion Uruguay as one of the best qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duc­ers in the world,” she said. ​“This award can have an impact on the recog­ni­tion of Uruguay as an ori­gin also for extra vir­gin olive oil.”

Morín attrib­uted the company’s com­mit­ment to qual­ity instead of quan­tity and sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion tech­niques as two rea­sons for its suc­cess.

“We take max­i­mum care of our crops and the sur­round­ing envi­ron­ment,” she said. ​“We are inside the first wind farm in Uruguay, and the energy is 100-per­cent self-gen­er­ated, as well as tak­ing care of our own water resources.”

“Quality is pri­or­i­tized over quan­tity,” Morín added. ​“The process is metic­u­lous and is mon­i­tored by our lab­o­ra­tory. The fun­da­men­tal thing is that the entire human team involved has a pas­sion for the prod­uct.”

Despite hav­ing a more coop­er­a­tive cli­mate this year than in pre­vi­ous years, Morín said that adapt­ing to Uruguay’s chang­ing cli­mate remained their most sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge.

Víctor Rodríguez, the gen­eral man­ager for olive oil at Agroland, which pro­duces Colinas de Garzón, another NYIOOC win­ner from Uruguay, said the high lev­els of humid­ity through­out the year make pro­duc­ing con­sis­tently high-qual­ity olive oil more dif­fi­cult.

“Uruguay is a coun­try with a lot of humid­ity, and this leads to a lot of health mon­i­tor­ing (pro­lif­er­a­tion of dis­eases) in addi­tion to main­tain­ing the same sen­sory pro­file year after year in each of our extra vir­gin olive oils,” he told Olive Oil Times.

Colinas de Garzón earned a Gold and Silver Award for a pair of medium blends. Rodríguez said win­ning in the com­pe­ti­tion helped the brand and pro­file of Uruguayan olive oils on the world stage.

“This is a con­test of great impor­tance world­wide, and obtain­ing these results gives us a let­ter of intro­duc­tion to the world that is very good,” he said.

On the other side of the Southern Cone, pro­duc­ers in Chile recorded the third-high­est awards total in nine years at the com­pe­ti­tion.

Of those, Agricola Pobeña earned two Gold Awards and a Silver Award. José Manuel Reyes, the company’s devel­op­ment man­ager, agreed that con­sis­tent suc­cess in the com­pe­ti­tion pro­motes Chilean oils on the inter­na­tional stage.

“The results con­firm the good work that has been done,” he told Olive Oil Times. ​“Chile is a high-qual­ity pro­ducer, and this is being rec­og­nized world­wide. It moti­vates all pro­duc­ers to con­tinue tak­ing Chilean olive oil to the top.”

During the har­vest, Reyes said Chile’s ongo­ing drought had been one of the company’s biggest chal­lenges. The lack of rain in 2021 forced the com­pany to reduce its irri­ga­tion by up to 50 per­cent for some vari­eties.

However, this did not stop the pro­ducer of the Alonso Olive Oil brand from extend­ing its his­tory of suc­cess in the com­pe­ti­tion.

“We have man­aged to be con­sis­tent in our work over the years, pro­duc­ing qual­ity olive oils,” Reyes said. ​“It is no coin­ci­dence that our Coratina has obtained Gold Awards in each of the last five years.”

Olivos del Sur, one of Chile’s largest olive oil pro­duc­ers, also con­tin­ued its legacy of NYIOOC suc­cess, win­ning a Silver Award.

“We’re not here for the awards, but they feel awe­some,” Claudio Lovazzano, the company’s mar­ket­ing man­ager, told Olive Oil Times about the third con­sec­u­tive award for its O‑Live & Co brand, a medium blend.

For Olivos del Sur, ris­ing pro­duc­tion costs and ongo­ing global sup­ply chain issues have pre­sented the most sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges.

However, Lovazzano attrib­uted years of invest­ment in water man­age­ment infra­struc­ture and knowl­edge to why the drought has less impact on the com­pany than other Chilean pro­duc­ers.

“The huge dimen­sions of our groves, an inte­grated process from farm to bot­tle, and our pas­sion for pro­duc­ing only the high­est qual­ity of extra vir­gin olive oil with a deep respect for the envi­ron­ment is what makes Olisur dif­fer­ent,” Lovazaano con­cluded. ​“We do this every day and expect to do it for a long time.”