`2014 Production Woes Extend to France - Olive Oil Times
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enEnglishfrFrançaiselελληνικάdeDeutscheitItalianozh-CN中文ptPortuguêsesEspañoltrTürkçehrHrvatskija日本語hiहिंदी

2014 Production Woes Extend to France

By Alice Alech
Aug. 3, 2015 10:10 UTC

L’association Française L’Olive, (AFIDOL) France’s inter­pro­fes­sional asso­ci­a­tion, held their annual sum­mer meet­ing in Aix en Provence.

Since its foun­da­tion in 1999, Afidol has sought to unite olive oil pro­fes­sion­als, to improve and develop pro­duc­tion and the mar­ket­ing of French olive oil and olives.

We have all lost, the olive grow­ers, the mill own­ers and the mar­ket­ing agents.- Oliver Nasles, Afidol

In his speech to the gen­eral assem­bly, Oliver Nasles, pres­i­dent of Afidol, ana­lyzed the cur­rent con­di­tion of the indus­try and pre­sented mea­sures which the pri­vate orga­ni­za­tion could adopt to bet­ter the sit­u­a­tion.

Nasles told the assem­bly that the French olive oil indus­try lost more than 30 mil­lion euros, money lost by grow­ers and mill own­ers who, in 2014, not only had a lim­ited amount of oil to process but very lit­tle oil to sell.

“We have all lost, the olive grow­ers, the mill own­ers and the mar­ket­ing agents,” said a dis­ap­pointed Nasles.

Oliver Nasles

Today, Afidol rep­re­sents 35,000 olive grow­ers and 265 mill own­ers who turn to the orga­ni­za­tion for help in grove man­age­ment, health and safety prac­tices and com­mer­cial projects. Members can assist at con­fer­ences and be trained on analy­sis and inter­pre­ta­tion of olives and olive oil.

Production fig­ures for 2014

It was not a bril­liant year for France with only around 5,000 tons of olive oil pro­duced. Table olive pro­duc­tion showed sim­i­lar neg­a­tive results: a total yield of 1,200 tons which was 230 tons less than in 2013.

Communication

Recognizing the need for effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Afidol has a new web­site to pro­mote olives and olive oil from the south of France. Practical advice on the site includes:

  • Discovering olive oil mills, pro­duc­ers and muse­ums in the olive oil regions
  • Information on olive oil and the Mediterranean diet
  • A restau­rant guide – gourmet restau­rants that high­light olive oil from the South of France.
  • 113 tried and tested recipes incor­po­rat­ing olives and olive oil.

Incorporated with Facebook, the site boasts 8,000 fans.

Education

The cam­paign for bet­ter-inform­ing con­sumers on the ori­gin and diver­sity of French olive oil con­tin­ues in the south of France. Provençal mar­kets are ideal sea­son for experts and pro­duc­ers to gen­er­ate pub­lic aware­ness on the impor­tance of trace­abil­ity, ter­roir and the diver­sity of French olive oil.

Twelve pre­sen­ta­tions in pop­u­lar touris­tic areas were orga­nized last sum­mer to address ques­tions on guar­an­tee­ing the ori­gin, the dif­fer­ences between the AOC (con­trolled des­ig­na­tion of ori­gin) and PDO (pro­tected des­ig­na­tion of ori­gin), and the sig­nif­i­cance of ​“EU” on the label.

Competitions

Olive Oil millers and pro­duc­ers striv­ing for excel­lence take part in regional and national com­pe­ti­tions for olive oil and table olives orga­nized by Afidol.

Promoting Provençal olive oils in the U.K.

The first olive oil trade mar­ket­ing cam­paign aimed at British retail­ers and chefs was held in London at Le Cigalon, the French restau­rant. At the tast­ing event held last year, dis­trib­u­tors, food writ­ers and chefs were pre­sented with five pre­mier olive oil brands from Provence includ­ing Moulin Castelas (Baux de Provence), Moulin Cornille (Baux de Provence), La Maison Codefa (Marseille), La Lieutenante (Baux de Provence) and Vignolis(Nyons).

The French con­sumed 108,000 tons of olive oil last year. Sunflower is the most con­sumed oil in France.


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