One-Third of World Olive Oil Competition Entries Organic for the First Time

For the first time, organic extra vir­gin olive oil sam­ples rep­re­sented more than one-third of the total sub­mis­sions in the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

According to Olive Oil Times World Ranking data, 35 per­cent of extra vir­gin olive oils sub­mit­ted in the 2024 edi­tion of the world’s largest olive oil qual­ity eval­u­a­tion were cer­ti­fied organic, com­pared with just 22 per­cent of entries in 2014.

Overall, 330 organic extra vir­gin olive oils entered the 2024 edi­tion com­pe­ti­tion, with 207 earn­ing awards.

Italian pro­duc­ers led the way, win­ning 63 awards from 78 organic sub­mis­sions. They were fol­lowed by pro­duc­ers from Spain with 32 awards from 38 entries, the United States (27 awards from 32 entries), Greece (26 awards from 38 entries) and Croatia (23 awards from 25 entries).

Organic pro­duc­ers across the olive oil world cel­e­brated their NYIOOC awards, with many point­ing to the hon­ors as vin­di­ca­tion for their hard work and the many chal­lenges that face organic olive farm­ers and millers.

“It was not easy to imple­ment organic cul­ti­va­tion in Giovinazzo, which had no other [organic pro­duc­ers],” said Benedette Stallone Desantis, the co-owner of Bari-based Le Due Benedette.

The com­pany earned a Gold Awards for its medium-inten­sity Coratina and Ogliarola mono­va­ri­etal.

In addi­tion to being cer­ti­fied organic, the olives are har­vested while still green in October, weeks before many other pro­duc­ers in the area begin their har­vests. Unlike north­ern and cen­tral Italy, Stallone Desantis said the har­vest in Puglia was abun­dant and ​“with­out com­pli­ca­tions.”

“These awards rec­og­nize 17 years of hard work,” Stallone Desantis said. ​“But it is sat­is­fy­ing that the land has returned to hav­ing the abun­dance of wild­flow­ers I remem­bered see­ing in my child­hood.”

She added, ​“The trees are mostly cen­turies old and have been main­tained in the shapes of the impres­sive Bari vase, and the oil is fra­grant and tasty.”

Stallone Desantis said win­ning the inter­na­tional awards has helped improve her company’s sales and, equally as impor­tantly, val­i­dated her organic project and its par­tic­i­pants.

While south­ern Italian pro­duc­ers enjoyed a bumper har­vest, pro­duc­ers in north­ern Spain con­tin­ued to suf­fer the dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences of the ongo­ing drought.

Anna Canal, co-owner of Catalonia-based Oli Cometes, said their lat­est har­vest was immensely chal­leng­ing, although it fin­ished with a Silver Award for the company’s del­i­cate Arbequina.

“During the last har­vest, we expe­ri­enced sev­eral dif­fi­cul­ties com­pared to pre­vi­ous har­vests,” Canal said. ​“The 2023 har­vest has been the worst in 40 years in our area due to the extreme drought we have suf­fered.”

“Our olive grove is dry­land; it only receives rain­wa­ter, which has been very lit­tle or none. We do not have an irri­ga­tion sys­tem in place,” she added. ​“The lack of rain has caused the olive trees to pro­duce fewer olives, trans­lat­ing into fewer liters of oil.”

The lack of rain also made it harder to remove the olives from the branches with the trac­tor-vibra­tor, which Canal said slowed down the har­vest as the olives had to be picked by hand.

“Even so, we have been able to pro­duce a very high-qual­ity oil, which is reflected in the award obtained,” she said.

Canal added that she is grate­ful for the award, which val­i­dated the hard work it takes to pro­duce organic extra vir­gin olive oil of award-win­ning qual­ity, espe­cially dur­ing dif­fi­cult har­vests.

Ten years ago, she acquired the farm, home to 1,700 Arbequina olive trees, and started con­vert­ing it to organic prac­tices.

“We are the only olive oil pro­duc­ers in Catalonia with bio­dy­namic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion,” she said. ​“In Spain, there are only 15 of us and around 50 pro­duc­ers world­wide. It is a very dif­fi­cult cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to obtain since it is very restric­tive.”

“The term bio­dy­nam­ics comes from the Greek bios (life) and dynamis (force) and means that this method works in accor­dance with the ener­gies of life, look­ing for a sup­pos­edly cor­rect rela­tion­ship between man and the earth, try­ing to ensure the soil and plant health,” Canal added.

While very sim­i­lar to organic farm­ing, bio­dy­namic farm­ing fea­tures some sub­tle dif­fer­ences. For exam­ple, Canal said that manure from corn-fed cows is pro­hib­ited since cows can­not nat­u­rally digest corn, and the result­ing manure con­tains too much zinc.

“We get the manure from a farmer who has cat­tle that graze in the moun­tains and eat only grass,” she said.

Canal explained that Oli Cometes bases its pro­duc­tion on ter­res­trial and cos­mic rhythms. ​“The strength of the plan­ets affects the crops and the qual­ity of the prod­ucts that are extracted from them,” she said.

“An exam­ple of a cycle we fol­low is the moon,” Canal added. ​“If it can move tides, it also greatly influ­ences the olive tree, which is made up of 80 per­cent water. That’s why we plant olive trees in the wan­ing moon: the tree’s strength is in the roots, and we do less harm to it.”

“On the other hand, if we apply the foliar treat­ment (to the leaves), we do it dur­ing the wax­ing moon since the force is in the crown of the tree, and the treat­ment is much more effec­tive,” she explained.

The bio­dy­namic farm­ing phi­los­o­phy extends beyond the olive groves into the mill and pack­ag­ing facil­i­ties.

“On the other hand, we can­not use plas­tic for pack­ag­ing. We only pack with glass bot­tles and phtha­late-free cans,” Canal said. ​“Phthalates are a deriv­a­tive of plas­tic often found in cans used to pack­age food. We get the phtha­late-free cans from a national pro­ducer, but the cost is triple that of a con­ven­tional one.”

On the other side of the Mediterranean, pro­duc­ers from the world’s largest organic olive oil pro­ducer com­bined to win 15 awards for organic extra vir­gin olive oils. Overall, Tunisian pro­duc­ers earned 26 awards at the 2024 NYIOOC.

Among them was Tiger Power, which exports its prod­ucts to Cambodia. The com­pany earned two Silver Awards for del­i­cate Chetoui and Chemlali oils under the 1629 brand.

Chief exec­u­tive Tiger Kong said being organic helps his extra vir­gin olive oil stand out from his com­peti­tors’ oils, attract­ing repeat cus­tomers.

“After win­ning the award, my brand con­tin­ues to shine on the mar­ket and main­tains the trust of our exist­ing and new cus­tomers,” he said.

Similarly to his European coun­ter­parts, Kong said cli­mate change is a per­sis­tent chal­lenge for organic grow­ers in North Africa. He added that pro­duc­tion costs have also increased sharply, and smaller yields have raised the costs of main­tain­ing trees.

Meanwhile, back in Puglia, the owner of Olio Infiore cel­e­brated win­ning a Gold Award for a medium-inten­sity Coratina.

“We pro­duce extra vir­gin olive oil with one thing in mind: to cre­ate an oil of the high­est qual­ity, with the least pos­si­ble impact on the envi­ron­ment,” Tommaso Fiore said. ​“Being awarded at the NYIOOC is an immense honor and a great sat­is­fac­tion.”

Olio Infiore’s owner added that the win­ning awards at the NYIOOC result from years of ded­i­ca­tion to organic tech­niques and pas­sion for the prod­uct.

“To achieve this, we use a com­bi­na­tion of tra­di­tion and inno­va­tion, both in the han­dling of the land and plants – our com­pany is, after all, an organic farm­ing enter­prise – and in the trans­for­ma­tion process,” he said. ​“We believe that nature should be helped and never forced, or even vio­lated, while we firmly believe that tech­nol­ogy can help cre­ate a per­fect prod­uct.”

Fiore believes that pro­duc­ing olive oil organ­i­cally enhances the char­ac­ter­is­tics pro­vided by the ter­roir.

However, he warned that organic farm­ing is not for the faint of heart, cit­ing the impacts of cli­mate change, includ­ing extreme weather events, the olive fruit fly and the threat of Xylella fas­tidiosa as chal­lenges faced by organic farm­ers.

Still, he said that Olio Infiore’s win at the NYIOOC shows that Italy should raise the bar regard­ing qual­ity and sus­tain­abil­ity and move away from the bulk pro­duc­tion mar­ket.

“We strongly believe the future is in the organic direc­tion,” Fiore said.