Year's Best Olive Oils to Be Unveiled April 27

New York will again be the focal point of the olive oil world April 27 when the best olive oils for 2017 are unveiled at the New York International Olive Oil Competition.

Producers, importers, dis­trib­u­tors, chefs, food indus­try pro­fes­sion­als and media will be among hun­dreds attend­ing the annual event to rec­og­nize this year’s award-win­ning olive oils.

Attendees will be the first to taste the brands selected by the inter­na­tional panel of experts in the world’s largest and most pres­ti­gious olive oil qual­ity con­test.
See Also:Get Tickets to #NYIOOC2017
The event will be streamed live via Facebook and on the Best Olive Oils web­site — the offi­cial online index of the com­pe­ti­tion’s win­ners. Last year’s live broad­cast was watched by more than 12,000 view­ers in 38 coun­tries.

Many of the win­ning oils will be imme­di­ately avail­able from the importers and mer­chants who stock them on the Best Olive Oils Marketplace, the por­tal devel­oped by the NYIOOC to make it eas­ier for buy­ers to source the world’s top olive oils.

“Distributors and retail­ers who have stock of the win­ning brands will be able to offer them for sale imme­di­ately fol­low­ing the press con­fer­ence,” said Curtis Cord, the NYIOOC pres­i­dent and the pub­lisher of Olive Oil Times. ​“We’ve been devel­op­ing the tech­nol­ogy through­out the year to enable mer­chants who are reg­is­tered on the Marketplace to iden­tify the win­ners that they have in stock and offer them for sale min­utes after the results are known.”

The win­ning brands will also be fea­tured in the first annual ​“Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils,” a printed guide­book that will be avail­able through Amazon and other book­sellers in May.

Tickets to the tast­ing event and press con­fer­ence are avail­able through the NYIOOC web­site. Seating is lim­ited, and the event is expected to sell out.

Organizers expect more than 900 entries will be assessed dur­ing four days of judg­ing lead­ing up to the announce­ment. The win­ning olive oils are cov­eted by chefs, food buy­ers and dis­cern­ing con­sumers every­where who value extra vir­gin olive oils of the very high­est qual­ity.

Winning at the world’s most impor­tant olive oil com­pe­ti­tion can pro­pel a brand to new heights.

“Once you have a gold award from New York, it solid­i­fies your prod­uct. It’s val­i­da­tion. There is a 100% link between win­ning at the NYIOOC and grow­ing my brand,” said Sheila Fitzgerald, founder and part­ner of Azeite Esplendido, which won a Gold Award for its estate-grown Esplendido Douro at the 2016 NYIOOC.

Evi Prodromou from Yanni’s Olive Grove picked up a Gold and Silver Award last year. ​“It was like we man­aged to climb Mount Everest, to the top of the world,” Prodromou said. ​“These NYIOOC awards will make a huge dif­fer­ence for our com­pany. Our EVOOs are now known on the whole planet.”

“Before I won the awards, I might reach out via phone or email and get no response,” said Salvatore Russo-Tiesi whose Bono 100% Organic blend and Bono PDO Val di Mazara from Sicily both won Gold Awards in 2016. ​“But since the com­pe­ti­tion, I can men­tion the award and the legit­i­macy is already there. I’ve made many, many sales since the com­pe­ti­tion.” The NYIOOC award has trans­lated to ​“skip­ping a full step in the sell­ing process,” he said.

Olive oil pro­duc­ers and mar­keters can still reg­is­ter their brands in the 2017 New York International Olive Oil Competition through the NYIOOC Producer Tools web­site.