From Germany to Herzegovina, Producer Turns Family Roots Into NYIOOC Gold

Summary

Marijo Maka Primorac won a Gold Award at the 2026 NYIOOC for his Filsoni Radišići blend of extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duced in Bosnia and Herzegovina, mark­ing his first entry in the com­pe­ti­tion. Primorac’s ded­i­ca­tion to olive farm­ing in Radišići reflects his strong con­nec­tion to his home­land and con­tributes to the grow­ing rep­u­ta­tion of high-qual­ity olive oil from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Marijo Maka Primorac, a con­struc­tion entre­pre­neur based in Essen, Germany, has earned a Gold Award at the 2026 NYIOOC for an extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duced from fam­ily land in Radišići, a vil­lage near Ljubuški in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Primorac’s Filsoni Radišići blend, made from Istarska Bjelica, Leccino and Frantoio olives, marked his first entry in the com­pe­ti­tion.

“The first time, and a Gold Award,” Primorac said. ​“It is an addi­tional incen­tive to strengthen my con­nec­tion with my home­land and take olive grow­ing even more seri­ously.”

Born and raised in Essen, where he owns Bauunternehmung Primorac GmbH, Primorac has built a career in con­struc­tion, includ­ing res­i­den­tial, com­mer­cial and ren­o­va­tion projects in Germany and Austria.

Over the past decade, he has invested earn­ings from his con­struc­tion busi­ness in olive farm­ing in Herzegovina, plant­ing his first trees with help from his father, Nedjeljko, and his uncles, Ante and Mate.

He later added 1,200 trees on stony hills above the Primorci-Rukčevina ham­let. The groves sit on sunny, rocky ter­rain, con­di­tions local grow­ers say con­tribute to oils with pro­nounced aro­mas and high polyphe­nol con­tent.

The olives are hand-har­vested and milled shortly after pick­ing. Primorac said he applies the same dis­ci­pline and stan­dards to the groves as he does to his con­struc­tion work in Germany.

“I spend almost every week­end in Radišići,” he said. ​“Everything is done accord­ing to pro­fes­sional stan­dards.”

The Filsoni name comes from a fam­ily nick­name with an unusual American con­nec­tion. Primorac said his great-grand­fa­ther left Radišići for the United States before World War I, dur­ing the pres­i­dency of Woodrow Wilson.

After return­ing home, he often spoke about Wilson, pro­nounc­ing the name as ​“Filson.” Over time, the nick­name Filsonići was applied to his descen­dants and became asso­ci­ated with the fam­ily ham­let in Radišići.

Although gen­er­a­tions of the fam­ily left Herzegovina for work abroad, Primorac said they kept return­ing. His father also built a busi­ness in Germany before retir­ing with his wife, Dragica, to Radišići.

Primorac said that con­nec­tion remains cen­tral to his own fam­ily. His wife, Ivana, is from Ljubuški, and their four chil­dren often ask when the fam­ily will return to Radišići.

“I have trav­eled the world, but Radišići and Ljubuški are the most beau­ti­ful pieces of land for me,” he said. ​“Everything is pos­si­ble when you love your home­land, when you do what you love and love what you do.”

Radišići has become one of the stand­out vil­lages in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s recent rise in inter­na­tional olive oil com­pe­ti­tions. Along with Primorac, Mirko Škegro, pro­ducer of Krš, and OPG Risto, owned by Nikola Medić’s fam­ily, also earned Gold Awards at the 2026 NYIOOC.

Producers from the Ljubuški area earned six awards in total, includ­ing Gold Awards for OPG Murić’s Bošnjak brand and the Rašić family’s Dole brand, as well as a Silver Award for Slavko Ramljak.

Across Bosnia and Herzegovina, pro­duc­ers won 16 awards at the 2026 NYIOOC, includ­ing 15 Gold Awards and one Silver Award, con­firm­ing the country’s grow­ing rep­u­ta­tion for high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil.

In Ljubuški, olive groves now cover about 220 hectares and include more than 70,000 trees. Nearby, entre­pre­neur Dragan Mikulić has devel­oped one of the region’s largest groves, with 45 hectares of olives planted on for­merly bar­ren, rocky land.

Mikulić, who also oper­ates a mod­ern milling facil­ity with a decanter and sep­a­ra­tor, said he plans to join the country’s pro­duc­ers at the next com­pe­ti­tion in New York.

For Primorac, the Gold Award is both a per­sonal mile­stone and part of a broader story unfold­ing in Herzegovina, where fam­i­lies are turn­ing dif­fi­cult ter­rain into pro­duc­tive groves and build­ing a new iden­tity around extra vir­gin olive oil.