Turkish Producers Reach New Heights in World Competition

Part of our con­tin­u­ing spe­cial cov­er­age of the 2022 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

With the high­est-ever turnout, Turkish olive oil pro­duc­ers, bot­tlers and exporters shined bright at the tenth edi­tion of the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

Earning a total of 65 awards (34 Gold and 31 Silver) from 116 entries, Turkish entrants far exceeded last year’s tally of 44 awards.

Participants from Turkey have increased their num­ber of entries and awards earned in recent years in the com­pe­ti­tion, sig­nif­i­cantly improv­ing their rank­ing among the rest of the con­tenders year by year.

Birsen Pehlivan, a Turkish olive oil expert, iden­ti­fied the con­tin­u­ous improve­ment of Turkish pro­duc­ers in olive oil pro­duc­tion as the rea­son behind their strong show­ing and suc­cesses in the world’s largest qual­ity con­test.

“Turkish olive oils are attend­ing the com­pe­ti­tion at ris­ing rates each year, get­ting awards at a ris­ing rate as well,” Pehlivan told Olive Oil Times.

“The pro­duc­ers in Turkey have quickly dis­cov­ered how to pro­duce high-qual­ity olive oil in the last five years,” she added. ​”This land is home to a huge vari­ety of olives and we know, to access the hid­den fea­tures, we need qual­ity pro­duc­tion pro­to­cols and to strive towards excel­lence.”

Pehlivan runs an online net­work com­prised of most of the country’s olive oil pro­duc­ers, offer­ing them guid­ance and expert advice. ​“For the last two years, I have been talk­ing to them [the pro­duc­ers] about the NYIOOC and the impor­tance of this com­pe­ti­tion,” she said. ​“I also guided them in their deci­sion to apply.”

“We orga­nize work­shops with pro­duc­ers, and I have edu­cated them on qual­ity olive oil pro­duc­tion,” Pehlivan added. ​“I am very proud to be called ​‘Teacher Birsen’ by olive oil pro­duc­ers in Turkey.”

The coun­try enjoyed a near-record yield of 227,500 tons of olive oil in the 2021/22 crop year, accord­ing to data pub­lished by the International Olive Council.

The ini­tial pro­jec­tions of an even higher olive oil yield exceed­ing 235,000 tons were not real­ized. However, the year’s pro­duc­tion total is the sec­ond-high­est for the coun­try after the 287,000 tons pro­duced in 2017/18.

The har­vest­ing sea­son was nonethe­less far from easy-going for Turkish pro­duc­ers.

In August, dozens of wild­fires swept through sev­eral olive oil-pro­duc­ing ter­ri­to­ries in the south­west of the coun­try, destroy­ing thou­sands of olive trees, and the weather fluc­tu­a­tions cer­tainly took their toll on the country’s olive oil pro­duc­tion.

In addi­tion, a pro­hi­bi­tion on exports of sev­eral agri­cul­tural prod­ucts, includ­ing bulk olive oil, imposed by the Turkish gov­ern­ment in March on the grounds of sta­bi­liz­ing the domes­tic mar­ket upset olive oil pro­duc­ers and exporters by dis­rupt­ing their busi­ness and rev­enue.

For Darvari Gida Tarim from Çanakkale in the north­west of the coun­try, the first Turkish pro­ducer to win four awards (two Gold and two Silver Awards) at NYIOOC this year, chal­lenges dur­ing har­vest and pro­duc­tion are always part of the job.

“Talking about pres­sure and dif­fi­cul­ties, har­vest­ing is always a time that has a sort of immutable value,” co-owner Cem Erdilek told Olive Oil Times. ​“It is the very peak of accu­mu­lat­ing the crit­i­cal pro­duc­tion mass needed to stay in the mar­ket and the crit­i­cal point in deter­min­ing the qual­i­ties and main char­ac­ter­is­tics of the olives.”

Overlooking the majes­tic Dardanelles Strait, Darvari Gida Tarim is cur­rently savor­ing the glory of the mul­ti­ple NYIOOC acco­lades it gar­nered in this year’s com­pe­ti­tion.

“Two Gold and two Silver Awards are clearly a source of good old pro­fes­sional pride,” Erdilek said. ​“We are improv­ing, and NYIOOC is like a sound­ing board that we are priv­i­leged to con­sider as an exten­sion of our team.”

Darvari has been par­tic­i­pat­ing in the world’s most pres­ti­gious olive oil com­pe­ti­tion since 2019, at first with­out reach­ing the podium but even­tu­ally becom­ing tri­umphant in what turned out to be a fail-and-learn process.

“The results com­ing from NYIOOC [in 2019 and 2020] were some­thing of a dis­as­ter,” Erdilek said. ​“It was pre­cisely these fail­ures that made us lis­ten. It took us two years to under­stand how to improve, and that brought changes to our pro­duc­tion setup and behav­ior. The feed­back we got this year was fan­tas­tic.”

Erdilek also said that the next har­vest­ing sea­son is a bit of a mys­tery. He added, how­ever, that the prospects look promis­ing for the com­pany so far.

“Darvari has already estab­lished a ref­er­ence point with the Byzantium and Ottoman labels,” he said. ​“Our trees are now in full bloom, it is a beau­ti­ful sight, and we feel con­fi­dent in our pro­fes­sional jour­ney.”

A vast grove of 80,000 olive trees grown with care and a mix of tra­di­tion with mod­ern pro­duc­tion tech­niques made return­ing entrant Gaia Oliva another big win­ner among Turkish pro­duc­ers at the com­pe­ti­tion with an admirable tally of four awards from all four of its entries.

“This year [at the NYIOOC] was even bet­ter,” owner Tuba Yilmaz told Olive Oil Times. ​”In 2021, we won a Gold and a Silver award and this year, our four prod­ucts received two Gold and two Silver Awards. [The com­pe­ti­tion] raises our global rep­u­ta­tion to new heights.”

Gaia Oliva received a Gold Award for its Premium Memecik Early Harvest mono­va­ri­etal and another Gold for its Finest Blend from blended olive oil. In addi­tion, two Silver Awards were awarded by the NYIOOC judg­ing panel to the company’s Premium Ayvalik Early Harvest and the Farmer’s Choice blend.

Yilmaz, a female entre­pre­neur who dreamed of cre­at­ing a healthy and deli­cious brand of olive oil for her­self and her loved ones, under­lined that her com­pany always works toward improv­ing the qual­ity of its prod­ucts.

She also noted that chal­lenges for the sec­tor con­tin­u­ously emerge, includ­ing the lack of qual­i­fied employ­ees, and she pin­pointed indus­trial pol­lu­tion as the most immi­nent threat to the olive oil sec­tor of Turkey.

“We stand fast in our fight against envi­ron­men­tal pol­lu­tion, but indus­trial residues are get­ting closer and closer to the trees we cher­ish to grow,” she said. ​“This is a great dan­ger not only for our clean pro­duc­tion but also for the whole world. The more we respect Gaia, Mother Nature, the more pre­cious fruits we receive.”

Another awarded Turkish pro­ducer, Anafortis from the his­tor­i­cal Gallipoli penin­sula, won a Gold Award for its name­sake extra vir­gin olive oil, a medium Ayvalik mono­va­ri­etal with fruity aro­mas and bal­anced bit­ter­ness tar­geted to ​“healthy lifestyles and taste buffs.”

“We are extremely proud of the recog­ni­tion given by the NYIOOC, the most pres­ti­gious olive oil com­pe­ti­tion,” owner Tolga Erguven told Olive Oil Times.

The com­pany pro­duces its extra vir­gin olive oil in lim­ited quan­ti­ties and a sin­gle batch, always stay­ing true to its val­ues of sus­tain­abil­ity and resource effi­ciency.

“On each phase of our oper­a­tions, from the olive gar­dens all the way to the bot­tles, we adhere to the sus­tain­abil­ity prac­tices our brand stands for and where the value we believe is cre­ated for the local com­mu­nity and the envi­ron­ment,” Erguven said.

“This is a long-term invest­ment propo­si­tion which will pay off for future gen­er­a­tions,” she con­cluded.