`Council Offers Grants for Olive Oil Promotion in Member Countries - Olive Oil Times

Council Offers Grants for Olive Oil Promotion in Member Countries

By Julie Butler
Feb. 1, 2012 09:52 UTC

The International Olive Council has called for appli­ca­tions for grants to co-fund activ­i­ties pro­mot­ing olive oil and table olives in its mem­ber coun­tries.

According to its call for pro­pos­als, it would wel­come pitches for edu­ca­tional and aware­ness cam­paigns show­cas­ing the chem­i­cal and organolep­tic char­ac­ter­is­tics and nutri­tional, ther­a­peu­tic and other prop­er­ties of olive oil and table olives and (that) are adapted to inter­na­tional mar­ket con­di­tions and trends.”

The types of activ­i­ties expected to fea­ture in pro­posed pro­grammes are: sem­i­nars, trade fairs or shows; sym­po­siums and work­shops; infor­ma­tion points at food fairs; pro­mo­tional mate­r­ial (brochures, CDs, books, etc); invi­ta­tions for the par­tic­i­pa­tion of inter­na­tional experts; or sci­en­tific events on sub­jects of major rel­e­vance such as the nutri­tional and health-related prop­er­ties of olive oil and table olives, lipid tech­nol­ogy and sci­ence, car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease, and antiox­i­dants.

The bud­get for the grants was €330,000 ($430,716) in 2011 and a sim­i­lar amount is expected to be avail­able this year but the IOC won’t make the final fig­ure pub­lic until all the grants have been awarded. It will co-fund up to 50 per­cent of selected pro­pos­als for events and actions imple­mented in 2012 and up to 31 March 2013 in the coun­tries of its mem­bers: Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Croatia, Egypt, the E.U., Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Montenegro, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, and Turkey.

Proposals must be received by the IOC by noon on February 13 and include a descrip­tion of the tar­get groups, aims and objec­tives of the event, and the themes and mes­sages to be con­veyed. The planned clos­ing date for the grant pro­ce­dure is February 17. If all the avail­able funds have not been allo­cated at this point, a sec­ond call for pro­pos­als will be made.

Among the ini­tia­tives funded under the same pro­gramme in 2011 were a con­fer­ence on polyphe­nols and health; a med­ical con­gress on health, nutri­tion and olive oil; a Mediterranean Diet forum; an olive oil and table olives pro­mo­tional cam­paign for the Cyprus Agricultural Fair; a con­fer­ence on olive cul­ture and biotech­nol­ogy; the devel­op­ment of an inter­ac­tive EVOO tast­ing kit; and pro­mo­tion of a new vir­gin olive oil tast­ing school for chil­dren in Córdoba.

The IOC also con­tin­ues to fund pro­mo­tions to open up new mar­kets in non-mem­ber coun­tries and its pro­gramme for 2012 includes ongo­ing pro­mo­tions in Russia and North America and a cam­paign now ramp­ing up in Brazil. The IOC is also choos­ing between Japan, Australia and South Korea — which would be a new­comer to IOC pro­mo­tion — for a new cam­paign.



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