S. American Producers Celebrate NYIOOC Wins

Producers from four countries touted the success as proof of the high quality of South American extra virgin olive oil.

Rafael Marchetti, Azeite Prosperato
By Daniel Dawson
May. 16, 2018 08:37 UTC
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Rafael Marchetti, Azeite Prosperato

South American olive oil pro­duc­ers enjoyed their most suc­cess­ful year at the 2018 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition (NYIOOC), bring­ing home 10 awards, includ­ing two for Best in Class.

Each time we receive these prizes, it is a proud moment for us. It’s like win­ning a marathon after just hav­ing run a pre­vi­ous one.- Diego Livingstone, Agricola Pobeña

Producers from four coun­tries touted the suc­cess as proof of the high qual­ity of South American extra vir­gin olive oil.

The NYIOOC is a dif­fi­cult con­test for some oils from the south­ern hemi­sphere” due to a later har­vest than usual, said Diego Livingstone, of Chilean pro­ducer Agricola Pobeña, which won two Gold Awards and one Silver Award this year.
See Also:The World’s Best Olive Oils
On two pre­vi­ous occa­sions, South American oils won 10 awards, but this year they did so while sub­mit­ting the fewest entries since the com­pe­ti­tion began in 2014.

Of the four South American coun­tries that were rep­re­sented in the com­pe­ti­tion, Brazil was the only one that defied this down­ward trend in par­tic­i­pa­tion. Brazilian pro­duc­ers sub­mit­ted more entries and won more awards than in the pre­vi­ous four years, com­bined.

Brazilian pro­duc­ers were also the biggest win­ners this year, bring­ing home five of the 10 awards, includ­ing one Best in Class and two Golds.

We felt very happy, dou­bly happy, in fact, this year because [our two Gold awards] show us and our cus­tomers that we are doing it right, mak­ing oil of the high­est qual­ity pos­si­ble every year and improv­ing,” said Rafael Marchetti of Prosperato, which received one Gold award for its Exclusivo Koroneiki and the other for its Exclusivo Picual.

Rafael Marchetti, Azeite Prosperato

As our prod­uct is still really new in our mar­ket, it is impor­tant to receive these awards as proof of our seri­ous work and com­mit­ment to qual­ity.”

Brazil is the sec­ond fastest grow­ing mar­ket for olive oil in the world. According to the International Olive Oil Council, con­sump­tion grew by 19 per­cent last year and is expected to con­tinue grow­ing this year. As a result, Marchetti believes that Brazilian pro­duc­ers can­not meet all of this demand, but can com­pete to have the high­est qual­ity prod­ucts on the mar­ket.

Even the best extra vir­gin olive oils from around the world can­not get to Brazil as fresh as ones pro­duced here,” he said.

These two Gold Awards for our olive oils only fur­ther con­firm what we are say­ing. They trans­late into a form of con­fi­dence for our cus­tomers, who know that they are con­sum­ing one of the best olive oils in the world.”

Uruguayan pro­ducer, O’33, received the other Best in Class award for their robust blend, Coupage Blanc. Uruguay has been the most suc­cess­ful South American coun­try at the com­pe­ti­tion, receiv­ing 17 awards since 2014 and record­ing a nearly 50 per­cent suc­cess rate. True to form, this year Uruguayan pro­duc­ers sub­mit­ted two entries and received one award.

O’33 pre­vi­ously won a Gold award in 2015 and Natalia Welker said this Best in Class award demon­strates that Uruguayan pro­duc­ers are con­tin­u­ing to improve on qual­ity.

The truth is that we are very happy since it takes a lot of work to achieve high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil,” she said.

I think the impact is pos­i­tive since it is a recog­ni­tion that comes from experts out­side of the com­pany, some­thing that our cus­tomers value very much. Uruguay is already inter­na­tion­ally rec­og­nized for its excel­lent extra vir­gin olive oil, but this award, in par­tic­u­lar, con­tin­ues to con­sol­i­date the path traced by pro­duc­ers in Uruguay.”

Livingstone echoed these sen­ti­ments. Agricola Pobeña’s three awards this year were the most any Chilean pro­ducer has received since 2015. They received gold awards for two del­i­cate blends as well as Silver for their medium Picual.

He said that the New York awards are an endorse­ment of the pro­duc­tion meth­ods and tech­niques of Agricola Pobeña and the Chilean olive oil com­mu­nity: an indi­ca­tion that pro­duc­ers are mov­ing along the cor­rect path.

Each time we receive these prizes, it is a proud moment for us,” he said. It’s like win­ning a marathon after just hav­ing run a pre­vi­ous one.”


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