2025 World Olive Oil Competition Results Begin to Roll Out

From Jaén to Hunan, farm­ers, millers and bot­tlers eagerly await news of whether their extra vir­gin olive oil has been awarded at the 2025 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

Results from the world’s largest and most pres­ti­gious olive oil qual­ity con­test have already begun to be released. Twenty-two oils from Albania, Croatia, Italy and the United States were awarded on the first day.

With the sub­mis­sion dead­line extended until March 15^th, pro­duc­ers from 25 coun­tries across the Northern Hemisphere have already sent their extra vir­gin olive oils to be ana­lyzed by the NYIOOC team.

Food indus­try pro­fes­sion­als, media and con­sumers world­wide closely fol­low the NYIOOC results. Many pro­duc­ers hope to cap off a fruit­ful but chal­leng­ing har­vest with one of the industry’s most cov­eted awards.

This is espe­cially true in Spain, where pro­duc­tion increased by more than 60 per­cent in the 2024/25 crop year after con­sec­u­tive years of his­tor­i­cally poor har­vests caused by extreme heat and drought.

Farmers and millers in Portugal, Greece, Tunisia and Turkey hope to cap­i­tal­ize on sig­nif­i­cantly improved har­vests. Meanwhile, pro­duc­ers in Italy, Morocco and the United States look to the NYIOOC to pro­vide one late high­light of an oth­er­wise dis­ap­point­ing crop year.

While pro­duc­ers rated the cur­rent har­vest 67 out of 100 in the 2024 Olive Oil Times Harvest Survey, a sig­nif­i­cant increase from the rat­ing of 51 in 2023, they high­lighted var­i­ous chal­lenges that needed to be over­come to achieve award-win­ning qual­ity.

Excessive heat, exces­sive rain, labor short­ages and poor weather dur­ing the har­vest were among those chal­lenges.

For exam­ple, pro­duc­ers in Portugal may be espe­cially eager for the con­tin­ued roll­out of the world’s best olive oils after sig­nif­i­cant rain­fall at har­vest time, which cre­ated chal­lenges with qual­ity.

Nearly two weeks of rain in cen­tral Portugal caused anthrac­nose out­breaks and some fruit to fall from the trees.

Meanwhile, in Greece, unsea­son­ably hot weather delayed the har­vest on the main­land and threat­ened qual­ity.

“Our olive groves are irri­gated, but we still had to work twice as hard to get the qual­ity we were look­ing for in our olive oils this year,” said Maria Sgourou, co-owner of Skoutari Olive Oil, which has won four NYIOOC awards since 2021.

Despite a sig­nif­i­cant pro­duc­tion decline in Italy, with the yield falling 30 per­cent to 224,000 tons in the 2024/25 crop year, pro­duc­ers reported that qual­ity remains very high.

“The olives were beau­ti­ful, and we are delighted with the qual­ity of the oil,” said Ceil Friedman, the co-owner of two-time NYIOOC win­ner Erminio Cordioli. ​“It was tough work, espe­cially with rain­fall fre­quently inter­rupt­ing the har­vest.”

Along with con­firm­ing that they have achieved excep­tional qual­ity, pro­duc­ers high­light other ben­e­fits of win­ning at the World Competition.

First-time NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition win­ners described greater access to global mar­kets, regional pro­mo­tion, and moti­va­tion to keep improv­ing.

Bianti Danaj, the founder of Donika Olive Oil, cel­e­brated his company’s first NYIOOC award in 2024. This year, the com­pany has earned a Gold Award for its Kalinjot monovri­etal.

In a 2024 inter­view, Danaj told Olive Oil Times that he hopes to be a role model for other pro­duc­ers in Albania, demon­strat­ing that invest­ment in qual­ity can pay div­i­dends in the long run. Winning at the NYIOOC is an essen­tial qual­ity marker in this regard.

“We’re try­ing to be a role model for every­body to show that it is ok to have higher pro­duc­tion costs but sell a prod­uct with more value to the con­sumer that is bet­ter for their health and the envi­ron­ment,” he said.

San Miguel Olive Farm from cen­tral California is among this year’s win­ners, hav­ing already earned three Gold Awards in the ear­li­est results.

“The impact [of win­ning at the NYIOOC] solid­i­fies the qual­ity of our prod­uct,” co-owner Richard Meisler told Olive Oil Times after win­ning six awards at the 2019 NYIOOC. ​“The mar­ket­ing will be very direct: a health­ful extra vir­gin olive oil. Our Tuscan Gold [brands] are cer­ti­fied by the best judges in the world as being extra vir­gin olive oil.”