Verde Louro Among Brazil's New Generation of Outstanding Producers

Summary

Verde Louro Azeites, a Brazilian extra vir­gin olive oil pro­ducer, has quickly become an award-win­ning com­pany in Rio Grande do Sul, win­ning mul­ti­ple Gold and Silver Awards at the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition. Despite fac­ing chal­lenges such as cli­mate vari­abil­ity, the com­pany con­tin­ues to expand its groves and edu­cate Brazilian con­sumers on the high qual­ity and ben­e­fits of locally pro­duced olive oil.

In the ver­dant expanse of Rio Grande do Sul, Verde Louro Azeites is among a new gen­er­a­tion of pro­duc­ers putting Brazilian extra vir­gin olive oils on the map.

The com­pany has evolved from a fledg­ling farm in Brazil’s south­ern­most state to an award-win­ning pro­ducer in less than ten years.

At the 2023 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, Verde Louro Azeites won two Gold and two Silver Awards, con­firm­ing the com­pa­ny’s long­stand­ing pur­suit of qual­ity. ​“These results prove that we are on the right path and suc­ceed­ing in our goals,” owner Daiana Fuhrmann told Olive Oil Times.

Founded in 2009 after Fuhrmann was inspired dur­ing trips to Europe and the Mediterranean, the com­pany set out to pro­duce high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil from olive trees cul­ti­vated in Brazil.

“At that time, a few small pro­duc­ers had begun invest­ing,” Fuhrmann said. ​“Combining this pas­sion with the dream of enter­ing the sec­tor, the Verde Louro was founded.”

In 216, the com­pany cel­e­brated its first pro­duc­tion with 1,500 liters of extra vir­gin olive oil from Arbequina, Arbosana and Koroneiki olives. Since then, Verde Louro Azeites has grown to more than 100 hectares in south­ern Rio Grande do Sul, near the so-called ​“cam­panha gaúcha.”

“It is a region char­ac­ter­ized by a sub­trop­i­cal cli­mate with an alti­tude of 386 meters, with peri­ods of intense cold in win­ter and very hot [tem­per­a­tures] in sum­mer,” Fuhrmann said. ​“These con­di­tions have a strong impact and request increas­ingly com­plex farm­ing oper­a­tions, par­tic­u­larly in recent years.”

“In 2022, we also had to cope with a severe drought stretch­ing from mid-November to March 2023,” she added. “[During 2023,] rain­fall began in August, and it is expected to last well into 2024.”

“The great­est chal­lenge for us is cli­mate, as weather directly impacts pro­duc­tion vol­umes and the over­all pro­duc­tion costs,” Fuhrmann explained.

The com­pa­ny’s state-of-the-art mill, a 450 square meters facil­ity nes­tled amidst the olive groves, can trans­form up to 1,500 kilo­grams of fruit per hour.

“[The mill] allows to slash the time between olive har­vest and milling, which makes the whole process faster,” she said.

“For Brazil, olive grow­ing is still some­thing fairly new,” Fuhrmann added. ​“We are con­stantly learn­ing and are still very depen­dent on tech­nolo­gies imported by the tra­di­tional pro­duc­ing coun­tries.”

The com­pany is actively work­ing on its resilience by inte­grat­ing ani­mal and veg­etable farm­ing, using sheep to con­trol rival veg­e­ta­tion and fer­til­ize the soil.

The com­pany also seeks to reduce the need for machin­ery by deploy­ing best prac­tices in the grove, an ongo­ing process.

In those con­di­tions, the farm expanded its orchards to include more than 25,000 trees aged between five and 12 years. Its groves now com­prise Arbequina, Arbosana, Koroneiki, Frantoio, Picual and Manzanilla.

Like other Brazilian pro­duc­ers, Verde Louro focuses on the domes­tic mar­ket, which is still more used to buy­ing imported olive oil than try­ing the local prod­uct. ​“Brazilian con­sumers know olive oil well, but only the imported one,” Fuhrmann said.

With 85,000 tons of expected olive oil imports in the 2023/24 crop year, Brazil is the third largest importer after the United States and the European Union.

Still, per­cep­tions are chang­ing. ​“Some Brazilian pro­duc­ers recently began to be acknowl­edged as extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duc­ers, with a small pro­duc­tion but a very high qual­ity one,” Fuhrmann said.

“Consumers in Brazil now fol­low this work of ours, and they express a grow­ing inter­est in award-win­ning olive oils, so con­sump­tion is devel­op­ing, with national olive oils gain­ing trac­tion,” she added.

Olive oil con­sump­tion in the coun­try has been steadily increas­ing over the decades. According to International Olive Council data, olive oil con­sump­tion in Brazil rose from 13,500 tons in 1990/91 to 103,500 tons in 2021/22.

“Every day, Verde Louro works to show con­sumers how extra­or­di­nary extra vir­gin olive oil is, how it is pro­duced and the ben­e­fi­cial impacts it can con­vey,” Fuhrmann said.

“We also [show them] the care we take in the pro­duc­tion and make them real­ize the dif­fer­ences between a high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil and an olive oil pro­duced in bulk,” she added.

“All of this work is com­pen­sat­ing us with beau­ti­ful results,” Fuhrmann con­cluded.