Sustainability Guides Award-Winning Producer in Turkey

As the demand for extra vir­gin olive oil grows, award-win­ning Turkish pro­ducer Garisar said that adapt­ing to an uncer­tain cli­mate and the chal­lenges cre­ated by pests is cru­cial.

“The grow­ing demand for high-qual­ity olive oil presents a sig­nif­i­cant oppor­tu­nity,” said Davut Ayvaz, chief exec­u­tive. Garisar won a Gold Award at the 2024 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

“However, we also face chal­lenges such as cli­mate change and eco­nomic fluc­tu­a­tions,” he said. ​“Overcoming these chal­lenges will require lever­ag­ing tech­nol­ogy and adopt­ing sus­tain­able farm­ing prac­tices to ensure con­tin­ued suc­cess in the indus­try.”

In addi­tion to an unusual win­ter, unevenly dis­trib­uted cold weather impacted many olive oil-pro­duc­ing areas, dam­ag­ing the fruit set­ting and directly affect­ing olive yield.

Turkey pro­duced 180,000 tons in the 2023/24 crop year, sig­nif­i­cantly below the pre­vi­ous sea­son’s record-high yield and 29 per­cent below the five-year aver­age. Despite these chal­lenges, Turkish pro­duc­ers earned 29 awards at the 2024 NYIOOC.

“It was a chal­leng­ing sea­son char­ac­ter­ized by stress­ful weather con­di­tions and nat­ural fac­tors,” Ayvaz said. ​“The impacts felt across the entire Mediterranean region affected us as well.”

“We expe­ri­enced a lower olive yield and encoun­tered mul­ti­ple chal­lenges in pre­serv­ing the qual­ity of our olive oil,” he added. ​“Still, we antic­i­pate the new sea­son will be suc­cess­ful and pro­duc­tive. We expect high-qual­ity olives and a good har­vest.”

As cli­mate uncer­tain­ties and pests require close mon­i­tor­ing of the orchards, Ayvaz believes that ​“we can man­age them through con­tin­u­ous improve­ment efforts and the imple­men­ta­tion of mod­ern agri­cul­tural tech­niques.”

According to the com­pany, the prin­ci­ples of sus­tain­able farm­ing guide its choices, and it min­i­mizes pes­ti­cide use and applies an organic approach through­out its pro­duc­tion.

The com­pany pro­duces var­i­ous foods; olive oil is the newest addi­tion to its prod­uct lineup.

“Garisar was founded in 2019, dri­ven by our pas­sion for dis­cov­er­ing and shar­ing unique and hid­den fla­vors,” Ayvaz said. ​“Although we estab­lished our busi­ness in 2019, our first prod­ucts were launched in 2022.”

The com­pany com­pleted the first har­vest of its 5,000 trees in 2022. The har­vest is done entirely by hand and occurs very early in the sea­son.

Garisar pro­motes its Arbequina mono­va­ri­etal as espe­cially rich in polyphe­nols and plans to expand its olive orchards fur­ther.

“So far, we have only har­vested from our Arbequina trees,” Ayvaz said. ​“We are cur­rently prepar­ing to add the Memecik and Ayvalik vari­eties.”

While Arbequina olives are orig­i­nally from Spain, Memecik and Ayvalik are native vari­eties. Memecik is known for its robust fla­vor and high antiox­i­dant con­tent, while Ayvalik, also known as Erdemit, is often char­ac­ter­ized by a bal­anced and fruity pro­file.

Both are highly prized in the coun­try. Since last year, Erdemit trees in the region have also been the source of the Edremit Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

In the com­ing years, the com­pany plans to add olive oils and other olive prod­ucts from cul­ti­vars that grow through­out the Aegean region.

“We gen­er­ally pre­fer the fer­tile lands of the Aegean region for our orchards,” Ayvaz said. ​“Our cur­rent Arbequina orchard is located in the Manisa Köprübaşı area,” the inland region east of Izmir.

All the olive groves man­aged by the com­pany fol­low a tra­di­tional setup with drip irri­ga­tion sys­tems.

“We do not yet have our own olive mill,” Ayvaz said. ​“As the num­ber of our orchards and vari­eties increases, we plan to build a mod­ern facil­ity.”

Ayvaz explained that its entire pro­duc­tion is intended for export, specif­i­cally to the United States.

“We com­plete the bot­tling process within hours of har­vest­ing our olives and import the olive oil [from Turkey] in bot­tled form,” he said. ​“Turkey has imposed restric­tions on olive oil exports in recent years. However, these restric­tions do not apply to bot­tled prod­ucts, so we have not been affected.”

Ayaz said the com­pany usu­ally does not par­tic­i­pate in olive oil qual­ity com­pe­ti­tions but makes an excep­tion for the NYIOOC.

“We decided to par­tic­i­pate in the NYIOOC because it is a pres­ti­gious com­pe­ti­tion… and pro­vides a valu­able plat­form within the U.S. mar­ket,” he said.

“While we were opti­mistic about achiev­ing this vic­tory, win­ning a Gold Award filled us with pro­found pride and honor,” Ayaz added. ​“It val­i­dates our ded­i­ca­tion and under­scores the excep­tional qual­ity of our prod­ucts.”