A larger venue, printed guidebook and a new portal for professional buyers highlight this fifth edition of the world's largest olive oil competition.
The fifth edition of the New York International Olive Oil Competition (NYIOOC) — the world’s largest and most prestigious olive oil competition — will be held April 24 – 27 in downtown New York City. More than 900 entries from at least 26 countries are expected to be analyzed during the four-day event.
The winning entries — the best olive oils in the world for 2017 — will be unveiled at 5:30 on Thursday, April 27 during a press conference streamed live to a global audience of producers, distributors, food industry professionals and media outlets.
At the same time, award winners will be listed in the Yearly Index of the World’s Best Olive Oils — the second most-visited olive oil website in the world next to Olive Oil Times, and the Best Olive Oils Marketplace, where buyers can source the winning oils from retailers and distributors who stock them.
A Printed Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils
The New York International Olive Oil Competition and the editorial team of Olive Oil Times have teamed with a leading publisher to create the “2017 Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils,” — a full color, printed book that will beautifully present the year’s NYIOOC award winners, along with comprehensive information on olive oil-producing regions, and the tasting, selection and usage of high-quality extra virgin olive oils.
The book will be printed this spring immediately following the competition and available through Amazon and other booksellers.
A Professional Buyer’s Portal
Also new for this year, organizers said, will be an online Professional Buyer’s Guide — a dedicated portal designed for industry professionals who seek high-quality extra virgin olive oils.
“The new portal will facilitate trade between the winning producers and wholesale buyers through a streamlined interface and state-of-the-art tools to quickly provide buyers with the exact information they need to make sourcing decisions,” said Curtis Cord, the NYIOOC president, who added that his team is consulting with leading importers and distributors to design the portal.
“Buyers will be able to drill down to identify award winners based on criteria they choose and begin the sourcing process with a suite of customized communication and trading tools,” Cord said. “In the end, this is about making it as easy as possible for supply-chain professionals to stock high-quality olive oils and get them to the kitchens where they rightfully deserve to be.” The service will be free for NYIOOC award-winning producers and buyers.
Larger Venue
The venue for the 2017 NYIOOC will be larger this year to accommodate 200 attendees at the always-sold-out tasting event and press conference on April 27, and to provide more capacity for the media pool.
Also for 2017, the tasting event that precedes the press conference — and where visitors have the first opportunity to taste the winning oils — will feature an international tasting menu with each course designed to pair with a new award winner to illustrate its unique characteristics.
Tickets to the tasting event and press conference go on sale February 1 via the NYIOOC website.
An International Team of Experts from 9 Countries
The NYIOOC’s elite panel of judges is a dedicated team of world-renowned experts in olive oil sensory assessment from nine countries. NYIOOC president Curtis Cord, in keeping with a tradition of naming three judges from distinct regions as panel leaders each year, announced that the 2017 panel leaders are Lina Smith, Miciyo Yamada and Rob Harris.
Smith is a Boston-based olive oil educator, consultant and founder of the Boston Olive Oil Club, an educational organization that teaches the public to understand and recognize quality olive oil. Smith studied under the late visionary Marco Mugelli.
Yamada is an official taster for the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry Policies and a panel member of Associazione Interregionale Produttori Olivicoli in Italy
Harris is an international olive oil judge from Australia and Germany, and a five-time member of the NYIOOC panel.
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