Tunisian Quality on The World Stage

Farmers, millers and bot­tlers in the North African coun­try of Tunisia cel­e­brated an award-win­ning fin­ish to a fruit­ful 2023/24 har­vest.

Tunisian extra vir­gin olive oil brands earned 26 awards at the 2024 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, with a suc­cess rate of 72 per­cent.

This fig­ure, which mea­sures the num­ber of awards com­pared to entries, has steadily increased, from just 20 per­cent in 2014 to 84 per­cent in 2022. Tunisian pro­duc­ers and bot­tlers earned 11 Gold and 15 Silver Awards for their world-class oils this year.

These achieve­ments come on top of a bumper har­vest. Government offi­cials esti­mated the 2023/24 crop year fin­ished with pro­duc­tion reach­ing 220,000 tons, slightly sur­pass­ing ini­tial expec­ta­tions.

Although these vol­umes are still below the five-year aver­age, they rep­re­sent a sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment over the 180,000 tons reported in the pre­vi­ous cam­paign.

Producers earned the awards despite ongo­ing uncer­tain­ties in the inter­na­tional mar­ket, ris­ing pro­duc­tion costs, and sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions.

Despite the chal­leng­ing sea­son, Phamed and its Olea Salbo brand won a Gold Award at the NYIOOC.

“Like other pro­duc­ing coun­tries, we faced unusual cli­mate con­di­tions this year,” said owner Naceur Elkotti. ​“Olive ripen­ing was severely dis­rupted, and we had to accel­er­ate the har­vest to save the sea­son. We did our best.”

“Initially, the sea­son seemed more promis­ing than the pre­vi­ous one,” he added. ​“Unfortunately, the lack of rain­fall and the excep­tional rise in tem­per­a­tures sig­nif­i­cantly reduced the fruit quan­ti­ties. However, it was still notice­ably bet­ter than 2022/23.”

Tunisian grow­ers stressed that as cli­mate change affects agri­cul­ture, adap­ta­tion is crit­i­cal for high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duc­ers.

“It is a new real­ity,” Elkotti said. ​“We must now con­sider this sit­u­a­tion for the future and find ways to irri­gate and help olive trees with­stand these chal­lenges. The future of olive grow­ing depends on this.”

The com­pany enthu­si­as­ti­cally wel­comed the Gold Award, espe­cially dur­ing such a sig­nif­i­cant sea­son for the found­ing fam­ily.

“I ded­i­cate this award to my grand­fa­ther and father, who passed away this year,” Elkotti said. ​“They were pas­sion­ate olive grow­ers and man­aged to pass on their love for olives to the next gen­er­a­tion despite our pro­fes­sional duties.”

“My father always said that olive grow­ing is not a job but a pas­sion,” he added. ​“He used to say that olives helped finance my uni­ver­sity stud­ies, so I must give back to them what they gave me.”

Naim Ben Said, the co-founder of the fam­ily-run Dear Goodness com­pany, said win­ning a Gold Award at the NYIOOC for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year was a sig­nif­i­cant val­i­da­tion for the com­pany, its net­work of coop­er­at­ing farm­ers and cus­tomers.

The award was cel­e­brated enthu­si­as­ti­cally in Hazeg vil­lage, where the com­pany oper­ates. Hazeg is in the cen­tral region of Sfax, a key area for Tunisian olive oil pro­duc­tion.

“We pride our­selves on being a fam­ily and com­mu­nity-empow­ered busi­ness,” Ben Said said. ​“A few min­utes after we announced the results, the entire vil­lage of Hazeg was aware and cel­e­brat­ing with pride. It was their achieve­ment, not just ours.”

“Hazeg is a small vil­lage of 20,000 inhab­i­tants,” he added. ​“More than half the pop­u­la­tion are small farm­ers, and the rest are con­nected to agri­cul­ture in one way or another. The inter­na­tional recog­ni­tion reas­sured them in their mis­sion to bring the best nat­ural prod­ucts to the world, show­cas­ing their incred­i­ble mas­tery and ded­i­ca­tion.”

One of the most chal­leng­ing tasks for high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duc­ers is estab­lish­ing their brand in an inter­na­tional mar­ket where con­sumer aware­ness of their prod­ucts varies widely.

“It is dif­fi­cult to estab­lish a brand in such a com­pet­i­tive envi­ron­ment, espe­cially given the low level of pub­lic edu­ca­tion on pre­mium olive oils,” said Michaël Zeitoun, founder of the French brand Parcelle 26 by HDMP.

Once again, Parcelle 26 tri­umphed in New York, win­ning three awards for its world-class olive oils of Tunisian ori­gin. The pro­ducer con­sid­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the NYIOOC cru­cial.

“Such awards ensure that our qual­ity level is at least com­pa­ra­ble to the pre­vi­ous year,” Zeitoun said. ​“They help us main­tain a high level of atten­tion to qual­ity.”

“New York is a very high-level com­pe­ti­tion that serves as an excel­lent ref­er­ence,” he added, high­light­ing the need to par­tic­i­pate in high-pro­file com­pe­ti­tions world­wide to increase the vis­i­bil­ity of high-qual­ity prod­ucts.

“For small farms like ours, which oper­ates 50 hectares, there is no option but to improve prod­uct qual­ity con­stantly,” Zeitoun said.

Meanwhile, Naouel Bouabid, the founder of pro­ducer and exporter Massiva, cel­e­brated the company’s Gold and Silver Awards for its Damya brands at the 2024 NYIOOC.

“Winning awards like the NYIOOC is a great honor, and our true reward is cre­at­ing excep­tional olive oil that our cus­tomers love. We’re com­mit­ted to uphold­ing this tra­di­tion of excel­lence for years to come,” she said.

Bouabid cred­ited the company’s sus­tained suc­cess at the World Competition to her family’s tra­di­tion of organic farm­ing, which is com­ple­mented by bio­dy­namic agri­cul­ture.

“Using these meth­ods, we fos­ter a healthy ecosys­tem and vibrant soil for excep­tional fruit qual­ity,” Bouabid said.

Damya’s pro­duc­tion involves care­fully select­ing olives from its orchards and those of local grow­ers.

“Through a rig­or­ous selec­tion process, we ensure their olives meet our strin­gent qual­ity stan­dards,” Bouabid said. ​“This allows us to source com­ple­men­tary olive vari­eties grown in unique micro­cli­mates, fur­ther enrich­ing our offer­ings.”

The brand exclu­sively sells extra vir­gin olive oil in the United States, pri­mar­ily in California.

“California’s olive oil scene is boom­ing,” Bouabid said. ​“Production is ris­ing, and con­sumers are get­ting savvier. Fresh, sea­sonal cui­sine is a sta­ple here, and high-qual­ity olive oil is a key ingre­di­ent.”

“From dress­ings to seafood driz­zles, it’s every­where,” she added. ​“While afford­abil­ity mat­ters, Californians are increas­ingly inter­ested in the unique fla­vors and ori­gins of their olive oil.”

Damya is off to a promis­ing start for the cur­rent sea­son. ​“We hope for a boun­ti­ful har­vest of olives with ideal char­ac­ter­is­tics for organic, high-qual­ity olive oil pro­duc­tion,” Bouabid said.