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Representatives of the International Olive Council (IOC) recently wrapped up a mis­sion to the United States to dis­cuss the future of the coun­try’s olive indus­try with pro­duc­ers, busi­nesses and admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials.

“I think it was a very intense and pro­duc­tive mis­sion,” deputy exec­u­tive direc­tor Jaime Lillo told Olive Oil Times. ​“We learned a lot from the U.S. per­spec­tive.”

It was the Madrid-based coun­cil’s first visit to the U.S. since the IOC’s new Agreement was put into action at the begin­ning of this year.

“We had two goals for the mis­sion,” Lillo said. ​“The first was to explain and talk about the IOC’s new Agreement, and the sec­ond was to talk about activ­i­ties for the next pro­mo­tional cam­paign in the U.S.”

The new Agreement puts more focus on con­sumer coun­tries and con­tem­po­rary olive com­pa­nies. Lillo called it a ​“fresh approach.”

“This new Agreement told us to go to con­sumer coun­tries and try to get the coun­cil closer to their con­cerns and under­stand their points of view,” he said. ​“Also to meet new pro­duc­ers, not tra­di­tional ones. There was too much focus on tra­di­tional pro­duc­ers.”

The coun­cil also held meet­ings with sev­eral gov­ern­ment agen­cies, includ­ing the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Discussions sur­rounded qual­ity and health stan­dards while address­ing chal­lenges and per­cep­tions held by the U.S.

“We tried to talk to every­one related to olive oil,” Lillo said.

America is the largest importer of olive oil and table olives in the world. The lat­est mar­ket report by the IOC states that olive oil imports are down one per­cent from last year while table olive imports are down two per­cent.

Lillo acknowl­edged America’s sta­tus as a major fig­ure in the olive oil world but rec­og­nizes room for improve­ment.

“The U.S. is already one of the big play­ers in the olive oil world,” he said. ​“It’s the top importer of olive oil and is already the third con­sumer in the world after Italy and Spain, but with much more poten­tial since con­sump­tion per capita is still quite low.”

The new pro­mo­tional cam­paign is expected to roll out in the com­ing months.

“We wanted to lis­ten to what the pro­duc­ers would like to see and to talk to the admin­is­tra­tions as well,” Lillo said. ​“There are many voices talk­ing about olive oil — pri­vate bod­ies, coun­tries and exporters — and we wanted to explore the ter­ri­tory and find where we can build bridges and coor­di­nate with each other and not over­lap.”

One more aspect of the mis­sion was to lay the ground­work for the U.S. to one day be wel­comed as a mem­ber state of the IOC. While that prospect may not become a real­ity for a num­ber of years, Lillo felt the coun­cil took the nec­es­sary first steps by forg­ing new rela­tion­ships between the IOC and key play­ers in America where few bonds had existed in the past.

Lillo sounded opti­mistic about the results of the mis­sion.

“It was a good start for the activ­i­ties of the IOC in the U.S. We hope to see the IOC closer to the U.S., and the U.S. closer to the IOC. That’s what we’re work­ing on.”

• International Olive Council


• International Olive Council