Japanese Olive Growers Strike Gold at NYIOOC Competition

Summary

A local com­mu­nity of Japanese olive grow­ers has won an award at the 2025 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition for their Aki no Shima no MI extra vir­gin olive oil, which comes from the Seto Inland Sea. The suc­cess of the olive oil is attrib­uted to a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort between cit­i­zens, busi­nesses, and local insti­tu­tions, with a focus on organic prac­tices and com­mu­nity engage­ment.

A local com­mu­nity of Japanese olive grow­ers is cel­e­brat­ing its sec­ond award at the 2025 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

The Aki no Shima no MI extra vir­gin olive oil comes from the pic­turesque coast of the Seto Inland Sea. Its name could roughly be trans­lated as ​“the Autumn fruit of the Island.”

The region is famous for a cli­mate closely resem­bling the Mediterranean.

More than a com­pany prod­uct, the Aki no Shima no MI extra vir­gin olive oil is the fruit of a broad com­mu­nal project.

“The story began in 2008, when the YamamotoClub com­pany was estab­lished to bring aban­doned farm­land back to life and breathe new energy into the local com­mu­nity,” Akihiro Hamada, pres­i­dent at YamamotoClub, told Olive Oil Times.

“The founder, who started domes­tic and over­seas busi­nesses from scratch, was deeply con­cerned about the dete­ri­o­ra­tion of his home­town area around Kure and Etajima,” Hamada said. ​“He wres­tled with what kind of busi­ness activ­ity could con­tribute to the local com­mu­nity and pre­serve the satoyama, the rural land­scape. YamamotoClub was born out of this strug­gle.”

“Working along­side the local gov­ern­ment, we started the Aki no Shima no Mi project to address the issue of neglected farm­land and help restore vital­ity to the coastal regions of the islands,” he added.

According to the com­pany, the suc­cess of its extra vir­gin olive oil is entirely due to the close col­lab­o­ra­tion between cit­i­zens, busi­nesses and local insti­tu­tions.

Farmers grow olives and con­tribute to regional agri­cul­ture, while the com­pany pur­chases the har­vested fruit and han­dles its pro­cess­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion.

They focus on organic, chem­i­cal-free prac­tices that pro­duce qual­ity prod­ucts for sale in shops, online and restau­rants.

The local admin­is­tra­tion facil­i­tates this process by dis­trib­ut­ing seedlings, orga­niz­ing train­ing ses­sions and sup­port­ing pro­mo­tional ini­tia­tives.

They also estab­lish model farms and encour­age com­mu­nity engage­ment through edu­ca­tional and devel­op­ment pro­grams.

“We can see how the project is expand­ing. In the last sea­son, we pur­chased olives from 87 small pro­duc­ers, way more than the 63 of the year before,” Hamada said.

The com­pany pro­duced its first olive oil in 2014.

“The most sig­nif­i­cant change since then is the increas­ing yields as more farm­ers get involved and the trees we planted grow,” Hamada said.

“Our olive groves are dif­fer­ent from those over­seas, as we have many small ones,” he added. ​“Local farm­ers also par­tic­i­pate in pro­duc­tion. They help with small tasks like remov­ing stems, so I believe that effort is reflected in the taste.”

“We are proud to work with local farm­ers and that the world acknowl­edges the qual­ity of our work,” Hamada con­tin­ued.

Since 2019, YamamotoClub has entered its oil into olive oil qual­ity con­tests, yield­ing mul­ti­ple awards, includ­ing a Gold Award at the 2020 NYIOOC.

“We are so proud of the work we have done with the local farm­ers and the gov­ern­ments of Etajima and Kure,” Hamada said.

The farm­ers involved in the project cur­rently grow a broad vari­ety of many well-known olive tree cul­ti­vars over a sur­face exceed­ing 12 hectares, home to more than 2,500 trees.

“We grow vari­eties such as Manzanillo, Lucca, Mission. There are also sev­eral Italian ones, such as Leccino, Maurino, Pendolino, Coratina, Leccio del Corno and more,” Hamada said.

The com­pany owns an olive oil mill at the Etajima Olive Factory and intro­duced a state-of-the-art olive oil extrac­tion sys­tem from Italy in 2015.

“It’s a sep­a­rate-type sys­tem, with indi­vid­ual machines for each step: washer, crusher, malaxer, decanter and sep­a­ra­tor. After sep­a­ra­tion, the oil passes through ten fil­ter sheets for fin­ish­ing,” Hamada said.

“To avoid off-fla­vors from left­over pomace in the machin­ery, we dis­as­sem­ble and clean the machines on the same day as press­ing. On days with heavy har­vests, work may con­tinue until 4 a.m.,” he added.

According to the com­pany, the early har­vest is a cru­cial aspect of its suc­cess, which usu­ally con­cludes before the end of October.

“We do not have spe­cial meth­ods, but we go to our olive trees with our hands, with­out using machines to har­vest. We use spe­cial care and tra­di­tional meth­ods to gather the fruits,” Hamada said.

“Our key prac­tice is metic­u­lous fruit selec­tion. Removing defec­tive fruits, stems, leaves

and branches by hand,” he added.

The com­pany also noted that it only buys freshly har­vested, rig­or­ously sorted olives.

Other prac­tices include using oys­ter shells in the field, as they can improve soil qual­ity.

“Once they are mixed in the soil, the crushed shells remain sta­ble for many years; that means we do not need to add them every year,” he added.

The main ben­e­fit of using shells is that they pre­vent root rot and improve drainage and soil qual­ity.

“Since the begin­ning, we have grown olives organ­i­cally, no pes­ti­cides and the most min­i­mal chem­i­cal fer­til­iza­tion. By using oys­ter shells or cow manure, we also help other busi­nesses dis­pose of byprod­ucts sus­tain­ably,” Hamada said.

Pests are among the most sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges cited by local grow­ers.

“There is a pest called the olive wee­vil, which causes trees to wither and die,” Hamada explained.

The Japanese olive wee­vil is an inva­sive bee­tle species typ­i­cal of East Asia. It feeds at night on the leaves of many dif­fer­ent plants, includ­ing olives, impact­ing pho­to­syn­the­sis. Its lar­vae can dam­age the roots of trees, affect­ing their resilience.

“The other chal­lenge is the yield fluc­tu­a­tion that results in some years with a good har­vest and years with a poor one,” Hamada said.

“Things were going well in 2021, but then in 2022, the wee­vil made the yields drop. We recov­ered the year after, but again, in 2024, we saw vol­umes drop. This on-and-off pat­tern has become a big con­cern in recent years,” Hamada said.

The com­pany stressed how the alter­nat­ing bear­ing nature of olives cre­ates pro­duc­tion insta­bil­ity.

“We are invest­ing in this, enhanc­ing our agri­cul­tural tech­niques, the prun­ing and all that can help mit­i­gate this fluc­tu­a­tion,” Hamada noted.

There are also con­cerns regard­ing future olive oil pro­duc­tion due to the aging pop­u­la­tion of local farm­ers.

Still, num­bers are grow­ing. ​“In 2023, we pressed 1,287 liters of olive oil, which sold out. It was a record. The pre­vi­ous one was 896 liters sold,” Hamada said.

“If that growth hap­pens, it is because there is a grow­ing aware­ness in con­sumers, and peo­ple are now rec­og­niz­ing the spe­cial fla­vors of qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil,” he added.

In the last 15 years, olive oil con­sump­tion in Japan has dou­bled its vol­umes, from 30,000 to 60,000 met­ric tons.

“However, Japan is not a mem­ber of the International Olive Council, so inter­na­tional qual­ity stan­dards for extra vir­gin olive oil are not enforced domes­ti­cally,” Hamada said.

“Many prod­ucts labeled as extra vir­gin do not meet those stan­dards, lim­it­ing con­sumers’ access to authen­tic olive oil,” he added.

The com­pany offers tast­ings at its stores and events. ​“Customers often say that they are tast­ing some­thing com­pletely dif­fer­ent from what they know,” Hamada said.

“Chefs, on the other hand, tend to under­stand extra vir­gin olive oil well. Many of our restau­rant and hotel clients con­tacted us specif­i­cally because they were look­ing for high-qual­ity domes­tic oil. Most of these estab­lish­ments tar­get high-end, afflu­ent cus­tomers,” he added.

It is never easy to pre­dict what will hap­pen in the next few months of the olive sea­son.

“Recent high tem­per­a­tures have had some impact, but not a major one. The big­ger issue has been pest dam­age up to this point,” Hamada said.

Some wor­ries in the region come from the tur­moil in inter­na­tional mar­kets trig­gered by the new tar­iff pol­icy intro­duced by President Donald J. Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion in the United States. 

Exports from Japan to the U.S. were ini­tially sub­jected to a 24 per­cent tar­iff, which was later paused for 90 days at the start of April. However, a base­line ten per­cent tar­iff remains in place.

“That is a big issue. We may not be able to export with such higher tar­iffs,” Hamada said.

“If con­firmed, the tar­iffs would deal a seri­ous blow, send­ing olive oil there could become impos­si­ble, a very dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion indeed,” he con­cluded.