How Rio Grande do Sul Became the Center of Brazil’s Olive Oil Industry

Summary

Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil is known for its agri­cul­tural inno­va­tion and food-indus­try entre­pre­neur­ship, with a his­tory of Italian immi­grants intro­duc­ing vine cut­tings lead­ing to wine pro­duc­tion and a den­tist turn­ing the region into Brazil’s choco­late cap­i­tal. The state is now becom­ing the epi­cen­ter of olive oil pro­duc­tion, with pro­duc­ers like Prosperato and Olivas do Gramado focus­ing on qual­ity, tourism, and cre­ative mar­ket­ing strate­gies to com­pete in a mar­ket dom­i­nated by imports.

RIO GRANDE DO SUL — Brazil​’s south­ern­most state has a long his­tory of agri­cul­tural inno­va­tion and food-indus­try entre­pre­neur­ship.

At the end of the 19^th cen­tury, Italian immi­grants arrived in what is now one of the country’s wealth­i­est and most devel­oped states, car­ry­ing vine cut­tings in their trunks. Over time, Rio Grande do Sul became the lead­ing pro­ducer of Brazilian wine.

Nearly a cen­tury later, Jayme Prawer saw sim­i­lar­i­ties between Gramado, about two hours north of Porto Alegre, and the resort city of Bariloche in west­ern Argentina. Though trained as a den­tist, he drew inspi­ra­tion from Bariloche’s choco­latiers in the 1970s and, using domes­tic cocoa, helped turn Rio Grande do Sul into Brazil’s choco­late cap­i­tal.

Now, the first gen­er­a­tions of Brazilian olive oil pro­duc­ers are fol­low­ing a sim­i­lar path, trans­form­ing Rio Grande do Sul into the epi­cen­ter of the country’s olive oil pro­duc­tion.

“Our father started this busi­ness; we don’t have gen­er­a­tions of expe­ri­ence, so we’ve had to learn and adapt as we go along,” said Rafael Sittoni Goelzer, mar­ket­ing man­ager at Estância das Oliveiras and one of three broth­ers involved in the fam­ily project.

Part of that adap­ta­tion has meant learn­ing to cul­ti­vate olives in the hot, humid cli­mate of Rio Grande do Sul, where aver­age win­ter tem­per­a­tures fall to about 12 ºC. Olive trees typ­i­cally require tem­per­a­tures between 5 ºC and 7 ºC for pro­duc­tive dor­mancy.

Lucido Goelzer co-founded the busi­ness with his wife, Sonia, after pre­sent­ing a study to local author­i­ties show­ing that olives could thrive in the region, chal­leng­ing the pre­vail­ing belief that they would not.

Farther west, in the rolling hills of Caçapava do Sul, Brazil’s old­est active olive oil pro­ducer has drawn on its family’s expe­ri­ence in the euca­lyp­tus nurs­ery busi­ness to intro­duce new olive vari­eties across more than 100 hectares of groves and test how they per­form in south­ern Brazil.

Rafael Marchetti, chief exec­u­tive of Prosperato, has spent the past 15 years study­ing olive cul­ti­va­tion and olive oil pro­duc­tion. That effort has resulted in 20 awards from the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition over the past decade.

Outside the har­vest sea­son, he trav­els through olive-grow­ing regions in Italy, Portugal and else­where, com­par­ing soil pH, local cli­mate and fla­vor pro­files to deter­mine which vari­eties might suc­ceed in south­ern Brazil. At the moment, he is espe­cially opti­mistic about Ascolano and Galega.

Still, Marchetti is real­is­tic about the com­pe­ti­tion Brazilian pro­duc­ers face from South American and Mediterranean rivals. In his view, olive oil alone is not enough.

“You can’t only be an olive oil pro­ducer in Brazil,” he said. ​“You need to have another busi­ness plan to com­ple­ment olive oil.”

Prosperato has used its nurs­ery exper­tise and expe­ri­ence import­ing olive trees to sup­ply seedlings to other Brazilian grow­ers.

The com­pany has also cap­i­tal­ized on its loca­tion along BR-290, the main route con­nect­ing Buenos Aires with the beach resorts of south­ern Brazil, espe­cially Florianópolis.

During the sum­mer and school hol­i­days, the high­way fills with Argentine tourists. With few major set­tle­ments along the road, Prosperato was able to build a shop in front of its mill, turn­ing it into a con­ve­nient stop for motorists return­ing from the coast. Billboards along the route announce its approach.

Visitors who stop can see the olive bon­sai dis­played out­side the store. Inside, they are invited to sam­ple the company’s range of extra vir­gin olive oils.

“But you need to sell more than olive oil” for a road­side shop to suc­ceed, Marchetti said. ​“When peo­ple stop, they also want to buy a cof­fee and a snack. The store needs to sell other goods.”

Other pro­duc­ers have diver­si­fied in other ways, build­ing vis­i­tor expe­ri­ences in which olive oil plays a cen­tral role within a broader mix of gas­tron­omy and out­door activ­i­ties.

East along BR-290, Porto Alegre is about three hours away. Another 80 kilo­me­ters north­east, in the moun­tain­ous Serra Gaúcha, sits the resort town of Gramado.

Known for its tra­di­tional German archi­tec­ture, the town of about 40,000 res­i­dents has aver­aged 6.5 mil­lion vis­i­tors annu­ally over the past two years, accord­ing to the recently inau­gu­rated tourism obser­va­tory.

Local pro­ducer Olivas do Gramado has taken full advan­tage of that pop­u­lar­ity, espe­cially among Brazilian tourists.

Perched atop a hill with sweep­ing views, the 49-hectare prop­erty has been trans­formed by André Bertolucci, his broth­ers, and their mother into an olive-oil theme park that wel­comes about 250,000 vis­i­tors each year.

Gramado and neigh­bor­ing Canela are known for their tourist attrac­tions, with parks devoted to space explo­ration, Ancient Egypt, dinosaurs, trucks, snow and choco­late. Bertolucci said he wanted to cre­ate a sim­i­lar des­ti­na­tion cen­tered on olive oil.

After dri­ving up a wind­ing road, vis­i­tors pay an entrance fee to access the park, which includes a tast­ing room, bar and restau­rant, hik­ing and bik­ing trails, a pet­ting zoo and an ele­vated elec­tric bike track that passes over part of the grove, giv­ing rid­ers a view of the har­vest from above.

One of the most pop­u­lar offer­ings is a guided tast­ing led by a cer­ti­fied som­me­lier. It also gives Olivas do Gramado an oppor­tu­nity to shape con­sumers’ under­stand­ing of olive oil.

The som­me­lier explains how to dis­tin­guish extra vir­gin olive oil from other cat­e­gories and offers pair­ing advice for the company’s many infused oils.

The tast­ing room is sep­a­rated from the mill by a long glass wall, allow­ing vis­i­tors to watch the pro­duc­tion process as they taste.

The com­pany pro­duces a rel­a­tively mod­est vol­ume each year using a small mill built by a Brazilian man­u­fac­turer. Its focus, how­ever, is on qual­ity, reflected in mul­ti­ple awards, includ­ing a Gold Award at the 2025 NYIOOC.

While qual­ity dri­ves sales of its extra vir­gin olive oils, Bertolucci is also known among peers as an ​“alchemist” for his infused oils, which include smoky, herb, lemon and spicy pep­per fla­vors.

Unlike many larger pro­duc­ers, which use extracts to make fla­vored olive oils, Bertolucci uses spe­cial­ized equip­ment to wash and dry fresh ingre­di­ents before infu­sion.

Small sam­ple bot­tles are dis­played on arti­sanal racks in the restau­rant, allow­ing din­ers to try the oils with lunch.

Back in cen­tral Gramado, a range of the country’s award-win­ning extra vir­gin olive oils, along with selected imported prod­ucts, is sold at Emporio do Azeite.

Co-founded by Chania Szewczyk Chagas and Rafael Arruda, the shop is located along one of the city’s main tourist streets, just behind its iconic cathe­dral. It gives vis­i­tors from across Brazil a chance to sam­ple local olive oil.

According to Gramado’s tourism obser­va­tory, vis­i­tors from all 26 Brazilian states travel to the city each year, with the largest shares com­ing from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

Because more than 99 per­cent of olive oil con­sumed in Brazil is imported, Szewczyk Chagas said the store allows Brazilians to com­pare local prod­ucts with award-win­ning oils from else­where in South America and the Mediterranean.

She added that many Brazilians are still unaware that the coun­try pro­duces its own olive oil. Once they try it, she said, they are more likely to switch from imported brands and con­tinue order­ing online after return­ing home.

For Szewczyk Chagas, the key is get­ting con­sumers through the door, encour­ag­ing them to taste and explain­ing what sets local extra vir­gin olive oil apart.

About 100 kilo­me­ters south of Gramado, the fam­ily behind Estância das Oliveiras has also embraced tourism to sup­ple­ment income from olive oil sales.

The com­pany is located about 30 min­utes from down­town Porto Alegre, which is part of a met­ro­pol­i­tan area with a pop­u­la­tion of 4.1 mil­lion. Its mill and vis­i­tor facil­i­ties sit atop a hill with expan­sive views of the land­scape stretch­ing toward the Atlantic coast.

Among its attrac­tions is a full-day expe­ri­ence that allows vis­i­tors to par­tic­i­pate in the entire har­vest­ing and milling process.

Guests arrive in the morn­ing to pick olives and enjoy a pic­nic of locally sourced prod­ucts. After a tra­di­tional lunch, the mill begins oper­at­ing, and vis­i­tors are guided through the pro­duc­tion process and taught how to taste fresh oil straight from the decanter.

On the other side of the mill is the com­pany store, where award cer­tifi­cates, includ­ing three Gold Awards from the 2025 NYIOOC, line the walls, tables and book­shelves. Nearby, the cor­re­spond­ing oils are avail­able for tast­ing.

“I don’t know why any pro­ducer would not invest in enter­ing com­pe­ti­tions to win awards,” Sittoni Goelzer said, not­ing that the com­pany main­tains a wait­ing list for its lim­ited pro­duc­tion.

He added that tourism gives vis­i­tors a chance to under­stand how olive oil is made and why it dif­fers from nearly every other edi­ble oil.

The visit con­cludes with a sun­set con­cert over­look­ing the groves, and each vis­i­tor leaves with a small bot­tle of extra vir­gin olive oil made from the olives har­vested that morn­ing.

Rio Grande do Sul accounts for about 80 per­cent of Brazil’s olive oil pro­duc­tion, with the remain­der con­cen­trated in Minas Gerais and São Paulo.

More than 100 awards from the NYIOOC over the past decade show that qual­ity remains cen­tral to pro­duc­ers’ ambi­tions. But Brazilian olive oil com­pa­nies are also clear-eyed about the eco­nom­ics: in a mar­ket where lower-priced imports will con­tinue to dom­i­nate, suc­cess requires more than mod­ern mills and best prac­tices. It also requires cre­ativ­ity, diver­si­fi­ca­tion and a com­pelling rea­son for con­sumers to stop, taste and come back.