2025 World Olive Oil Competition Results Begin to Roll Out

Summary

Producers from around the world eagerly await the results of the 2025 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, with awards already being given to oils from Albania, Croatia, Italy, and the United States on the first day of release, despite ongo­ing chal­lenges such as weather, labor short­ages, and pro­duc­tion declines in some regions. Winning at the NYIOOC is seen as a sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment for pro­duc­ers, pro­vid­ing access to global mar­kets, regional pro­mo­tion, and moti­va­tion to con­tinue improv­ing the qual­ity of their prod­ucts, as demon­strated by first-time win­ners like Bianti Danaj of Donika Olive Oil and repeat win­ners like San Miguel Olive Farm from California.

From Jaén to Hunan, farm­ers, millers and bot­tlers eagerly await news of whether their extra vir­gin olive oil has been awarded at the 2025 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

Results from the world’s largest and most pres­ti­gious olive oil qual­ity con­test have already begun to be released. Twenty-two oils from Albania, Croatia, Italy and the United States were awarded on the first day.

With the sub­mis­sion dead­line extended until March 15^th, pro­duc­ers from 25 coun­tries across the Northern Hemisphere have already sent their extra vir­gin olive oils to be ana­lyzed by the NYIOOC team.

Food indus­try pro­fes­sion­als, media and con­sumers world­wide closely fol­low the NYIOOC results. Many pro­duc­ers hope to cap off a fruit­ful but chal­leng­ing har­vest with one of the industry’s most cov­eted awards.

This is espe­cially true in Spain, where pro­duc­tion increased by more than 60 per­cent in the 2024/25 crop year after con­sec­u­tive years of his­tor­i­cally poor har­vests caused by extreme heat and drought.

Farmers and millers in Portugal, Greece, Tunisia and Turkey hope to cap­i­tal­ize on sig­nif­i­cantly improved har­vests. Meanwhile, pro­duc­ers in Italy, Morocco and the United States look to the NYIOOC to pro­vide one late high­light of an oth­er­wise dis­ap­point­ing crop year.

While pro­duc­ers rated the cur­rent har­vest 67 out of 100 in the 2024 Olive Oil Times Harvest Survey, a sig­nif­i­cant increase from the rat­ing of 51 in 2023, they high­lighted var­i­ous chal­lenges that needed to be over­come to achieve award-win­ning qual­ity.

Excessive heat, exces­sive rain, labor short­ages and poor weather dur­ing the har­vest were among those chal­lenges.

For exam­ple, pro­duc­ers in Portugal may be espe­cially eager for the con­tin­ued roll­out of the world’s best olive oils after sig­nif­i­cant rain­fall at har­vest time, which cre­ated chal­lenges with qual­ity.

Nearly two weeks of rain in cen­tral Portugal caused anthrac­nose out­breaks and some fruit to fall from the trees.

Meanwhile, in Greece, unsea­son­ably hot weather delayed the har­vest on the main­land and threat­ened qual­ity.

“Our olive groves are irri­gated, but we still had to work twice as hard to get the qual­ity we were look­ing for in our olive oils this year,” said Maria Sgourou, co-owner of Skoutari Olive Oil, which has won four NYIOOC awards since 2021.

Despite a sig­nif­i­cant pro­duc­tion decline in Italy, with the yield falling 30 per­cent to 224,000 tons in the 2024/25 crop year, pro­duc­ers reported that qual­ity remains very high.

“The olives were beau­ti­ful, and we are delighted with the qual­ity of the oil,” said Ceil Friedman, the co-owner of two-time NYIOOC win­ner Erminio Cordioli. ​“It was tough work, espe­cially with rain­fall fre­quently inter­rupt­ing the har­vest.”

Along with con­firm­ing that they have achieved excep­tional qual­ity, pro­duc­ers high­light other ben­e­fits of win­ning at the World Competition.

First-time NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition win­ners described greater access to global mar­kets, regional pro­mo­tion, and moti­va­tion to keep improv­ing.

Bianti Danaj, the founder of Donika Olive Oil, cel­e­brated his company’s first NYIOOC award in 2024. This year, the com­pany has earned a Gold Award for its Kalinjot monovri­etal.

In a 2024 inter­view, Danaj told Olive Oil Times that he hopes to be a role model for other pro­duc­ers in Albania, demon­strat­ing that invest­ment in qual­ity can pay div­i­dends in the long run. Winning at the NYIOOC is an essen­tial qual­ity marker in this regard.

“We’re try­ing to be a role model for every­body to show that it is ok to have higher pro­duc­tion costs but sell a prod­uct with more value to the con­sumer that is bet­ter for their health and the envi­ron­ment,” he said.

San Miguel Olive Farm from cen­tral California is among this year’s win­ners, hav­ing already earned three Gold Awards in the ear­li­est results.

“The impact [of win­ning at the NYIOOC] solid­i­fies the qual­ity of our prod­uct,” co-owner Richard Meisler told Olive Oil Times after win­ning six awards at the 2019 NYIOOC. ​“The mar­ket­ing will be very direct: a health­ful extra vir­gin olive oil. Our Tuscan Gold [brands] are cer­ti­fied by the best judges in the world as being extra vir­gin olive oil.”