Entries Pour in for Sixth NYIOOC

Olive oil pro­duc­ers from around the world are reg­is­ter­ing their brands for the sixth annual New York International Olive Oil Competition affirm­ing they were able to over­come yet another chal­leng­ing har­vest sea­son to ready their prod­ucts for olive oil’s biggest stage.

“We’re see­ing strong enthu­si­asm from every region,” said Curtis Cord, the NYIOOC founder and Olive Oil Times pub­lisher. ​“Despite lower yields in some places, pro­duc­ers are report­ing they’re pleased with the qual­ity of their oils — and they’re ready for New York.”

Last year, a record 910 entries from 27 coun­tries were ana­lyzed at the four-day event — the largest olive oil com­pe­ti­tion in the world. Cord, who ear­lier this year changed the even­t’s offi­cial name to NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, said he expected another strong show­ing for the sixth edi­tion.

In fact, at the 2017 NYIOOC there were more oils awarded than ever before — a sign that, as Cord said when announc­ing the results, ​“efforts to make great olive oil around the world are pay­ing off — pro­duc­ers in every region have answered our call and lifted their game.”

The win­ners of the NYIOOC are pre­sented on the Best Olive Oils web­site — the pop­u­lar online guide where thou­sands search every day for highly rated brands. Cord said his team is work­ing on major enhance­ments to the guide that will expand its reach even fur­ther for NYIOOC2018. ​“In the end, our goal is to get the win­ning brands noticed. We’re work­ing on new chan­nels and inter­faces to reach more peo­ple with these great oils,” said Cord.

Those ini­tia­tives will also expand the reach of the Best Olive Oil Marketplace (known as ​‘BOOM’), the por­tal set up by the NYIOOC where peo­ple and busi­nesses can buy the win­ning brands directly from the pro­duc­ers and mer­chants who stock them. This year, the Marketplace will also be rolled out inter­na­tion­ally in key mar­kets.

The 2018 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition results will be unveiled at a press con­fer­ence on April 26 imme­di­ately fol­low­ing four days of analy­ses by eigh­teen of the world’s fore­most expert tasters.

Cord has appointed two new judges to the panel, Dr. Karolina Brkić Bubola from Croatia and Francisco Ataíde Pavão from Portugal who will join 16 return­ing experts. The panel will use a new, pro­pri­etary judg­ing pro­gram devel­oped by NYIOOC that Cord called ​“the most advanced judg­ing app in exis­tence,” which elim­i­nates paper­work and makes it impos­si­ble to misiden­tify a sam­ple.

Producers and brand mar­keters can reg­is­ter entries for the 2018 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition on the NYIOOC Producer Tools web­site. Tickets to the event go on sale in February.