`Recipe Contest in Brazil Promotes Spanish Olive Oil - Olive Oil Times

Recipe Contest in Brazil Promotes Spanish Olive Oil

By Daniel Williams
Oct. 26, 2010 09:00 UTC

By Daniel Williams
Olive Oil Times Contributor | Reporting from Barcelona

The Interprofesional del Aceite de Oliva Español (OIA), a non-profit orga­ni­za­tion designed to strengthen the posi­tion of Spanish olive oil in the global mar­ket, has just launched a diver­si­fied cam­paign to pro­mote Spanish olive oil through­out Brazil. Marketing experts see this as a key strate­gic move to woo the con­sumer base of a coun­try yet to be dom­i­nated by a sin­gle olive oil provider.

With the finan­cial sup­port from Spanish pro­duc­ers, pack­ers, man­u­fac­tur­ers and exporters, the OIA has devised a recipe con­test based upon one of Spain’s most infa­mous lit­er­ary gen­tle­men, Miguel Cervantes’ Don Quixote de la Mancha.

europe-south-america-recipe-contest-in-brazil-promotes-spanish-olive-oil-olive-oil-times-oia-president-pedro-barato
OIA President Pedro Barato

The con­test, aptly titled, The Culinary Adventures of Don Quixote”, is open to all Brazilians with the only require­ment being that the recipe use a vari­ety of Spanish olive oil as a pri­mary ingre­di­ent. In addi­tion to this, the con­test also chal­lenges famous restau­ra­teurs to present their most inge­nious menus using a com­bi­na­tion of Brazilian ingre­di­ents and Spanish olive oil.

The idea behind the mar­ket­ing cam­paign is to fur­ther intro­duce Spanish olive oil into the cui­sine and diet of the world’s fifth largest coun­try. The cam­paign has even extended into Brazilian super­mar­kets across the coun­try. The Interprofesional del Aceite de Oliva Español has stocked bot­tles of Spanish olive oil in super­mar­kets with an attached recipe for Bombocado, a tra­di­tional Brazilian dessert. The cam­paign has already cre­ated a buzz among con­sumers as it promises a tastier ver­sion of the dessert which also car­ries long-term health ben­e­fits.

The pro­mo­tional cam­paigns do not seek imme­di­ate profit gains alone, but also aim to increase the pub­lic’s aware­ness of Spanish olive oil. Olive oils from Jaén, Spain which have been mar­keted in Brazilian super­mar­ket brochures (Perez Arquero, Mueloliva and
La Massie) have reported see­ing their sales jump 1000%. Whether this spe­cific data can
be attrib­uted to the recent mar­ket­ing cam­paigns is unknown. Last year olive oil exports
from Spanish com­pa­nies to Brazil rose 11%.[1]

Spanish pro­duc­ers are hop­ing to dom­i­nate the mar­ket before Brazil is able to pro­duce enough olive oil to sup­ply the coun­try on its own. Earlier this year, state-owned Empresa de Pesquisa Agropecuaria de Minas Gerais pre­sented Brazil’s first extra vir­gin olive oil made from olives specif­i­cally adapted to the Brazilian climate.[2] These pro­duc­ers, based in the munic­i­pal­ity of Baependi, in the south of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, have planted 5,000 olive trees in an area of approx­i­mately 20 hectares and pre­dict to pro­duce a suf­fi­cient amount of olives to make olive oil within 5 years time.[3]

Despite this, how­ever, Brazil remains a major importer of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese olive oil. According to the International Olive Oil Council, Brazil imported some 47,610 tons of olive oil in 2009 alone.[4]

With this in mind, the Spanish gov­ern­ment has con­tin­ued to pump money into mar­ket­ing ini­tia­tives as Spanish olive oils con­tinue to fight for dom­i­nance in emerg­ing world mar­kets. Earlier this month, the Interprofesional del Aceite de Oliva Español received another 413,891 Euros to con­tinue its pro­mo­tional activ­i­ties abroad.[5]

.

[1] Brasil, un mer­cado estratégico para el aceite de oliva español”
[2] Brazil Adapts Olives for the Tropics”
[3] Farmers in Minas, Brazil, Have Big Plan for Olive Oil Production
[4] Brasil: Olive Oil Imports” (PDF)
[5] El FEGA pub­lica las sub­ven­ciones con­ce­di­das con cargo a los fon­dos FEAGA-FEADER”

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