Early NYIOOC Award Highlights Montenegro’s Growing Inland Olive Sector

Summary

Balša Baletić, a Montenegrin olive grower, won a Silver Award at the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition for his blend Oro, mark­ing Montenegro’s first award in the com­pe­ti­tion. Baletić’s inland loca­tion in Zeta, along with his ded­i­ca­tion to qual­ity and sus­tain­abil­ity, has led to suc­cess­ful olive oil pro­duc­tion and recog­ni­tion in the indus­try.

A Montenegrin pro­ducer has won the country’s first award at the 2026 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, a mile­stone that sup­port­ers say could accel­er­ate inter­est in olive grow­ing beyond the Adriatic coast.

Balša Baletić, an olive grower and econ­o­mist from Zeta, about 50 kilo­me­ters north of the sea, earned a Silver Award for Oro, a blend led by Oblica and Istarska bjel­ica with smaller amounts of Leccino and Pendolino. ​“This is my first com­pe­ti­tion ever,” Baletić told Olive Oil Times. ​“The award means a lot to me and con­firms I’m on the right path.”

Baletić said the inland loca­tion helps shape both yields and fla­vor. He attrib­utes the oil’s pun­gency and aroma to a micro­cli­mate that com­bines Mediterranean influ­ences with a fer­tile plain and pro­nounced day – night tem­per­a­ture swings. Warm days and cooler nights, he said, can inten­sify sen­sory char­ac­ter­is­tics com­pared with some coastal sites.

Friends describe Baletić as some­one who built an ​“American dream” in Montenegro. He left Podgorica in 2004, vis­it­ing rel­a­tives in Los Angeles before estab­lish­ing busi­nesses in Florida. Miami remains his com­mer­cial base, where he has worked in con­struc­tion and trade, but fam­ily con­sid­er­a­tions led him to spend part of the year back home.

“I wanted the chil­dren to have a child­hood like we did,” he said, describ­ing a fam­ily rou­tine split between school in Montenegro and hol­i­days in the United States. ​“I won’t impose either America or Montenegro on them; let them choose when they grow up.”

Baletić began plant­ing olives in 2018 with 35 trees. He expanded rapidly, build­ing an approx­i­mately seven-hectare grove that now includes about 3,000 trees and a Pieralisi mill, allow­ing him to con­trol the entire process from har­vest to bot­tling — an approach he says is cen­tral to qual­ity.

“Olive oil pro­duc­tion doesn’t deter­mine our liveli­hood — this is a side story based on love,” Baletić said in an inter­view with a local pub­li­ca­tion, explain­ing that the fam­ily pri­or­i­tizes qual­ity over vol­ume. He said he chose vari­eties asso­ci­ated with high polyphe­nol poten­tial and tested nurs­ery stock sourced from both Croatia and Italy to com­pare per­for­mance.

He also warned that inad­e­quate con­trols on imported saplings can spread dis­ease, not­ing that a sin­gle infected tree can jeop­ar­dize an entire grove. The risk under­scores why many pro­duc­ers are pay­ing closer atten­tion to pest pres­sure and plant health as new plant­i­ngs expand inland.

During the most recent har­vest, Baletić said the fam­ily pressed fruit imme­di­ately in their on-site mill, which has a capac­ity of 500 kilo­grams per hour. ​“It’s cru­cial that the fruit is milled as soon as pos­si­ble after har­vest and stored prop­erly so it doesn’t oxi­dize,” he said, describ­ing cold extrac­tion and stor­age in sealed stain­less steel tanks in a cool cel­lar.

Baletić said the grove has ben­e­fited from healthy fruit and lim­ited olive fly dam­age, which he cred­ited to site con­di­tions and farm­ing prac­tices. For other poten­tial pests, he said poul­try roam­ing the prop­erty helps reduce insect pres­sure, adding an ele­ment of low-input sus­tain­abil­ity while pro­vid­ing manure for soil fer­til­ity.

News of the award prompted con­grat­u­la­tory mes­sages from across Montenegro’s olive sec­tor. Ćazim Alković, an olive grower and pres­i­dent of the Bar Olive Growers’ Association, called the com­pe­ti­tion the ​“Champions League” for pro­duc­ers and said the result showed unusual con­fi­dence for a first-time entrant. He argued that the medal also points to the suit­abil­ity of the Zeta area for mod­ern groves, where care­ful vari­ety selec­tion and tightly man­aged pro­cess­ing can yield com­pet­i­tive results.

Montenegro’s tra­di­tional olive heart­land remains along the coast, from the Bay of Kotor through Bar and Ulcinj, where some groves include cen­turies-old trees and the famed ancient olive in Mirovica. But grow­ers and local offi­cials say new inland plant­i­ngs around Zeta, Tuzi and Podgorica have expanded over the past two decades, reflect­ing chang­ing invest­ment pat­terns and grow­ing con­fi­dence in non-coastal sites for olive farm­ing.

Baletić said he sees no need to choose between the two coun­tries he calls home. With plan­ning, he said, the fam­ily can main­tain busi­ness ties in Miami while build­ing a long-term agri­cul­tural project in Montenegro — one that he hopes will stand as an exam­ple for other pro­duc­ers and, even­tu­ally, a des­ti­na­tion linked to local food and rural life.