Judging Underway at Sixth NYIOOC

An inter­na­tional panel of experts began ana­lyz­ing one thou­sand entries from 28 coun­tries this morn­ing at the sixth annual NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition — the largest such event in the world.

At 9 o’clock (EDT) the first sam­ples were dis­trib­uted to 18 judges whose deter­mi­na­tions will lead to the unveil­ing of this year’s best extra vir­gin olive oils at a press con­fer­ence Thursday evening attended by pro­duc­ers, importers, food indus­try pro­fes­sion­als and jour­nal­ists.

Supporting the judges’ analy­ses is a team of 40 ded­i­cated staff and tech­ni­cians in New York, and 15 work­ing remotely, to man­age the data in real time so the final results are ready on the last day of judg­ing.

The expert panel will be using for the first time a pro­pri­etary judg­ing appli­ca­tion devel­oped by the NYIOOC tech­ni­cal team to mon­i­tor and ver­ify the accu­racy of the panel’s work on a secure frame­work.

This Thursday at 5:30 PM (EDT), the results of the com­pe­ti­tion will be announced at the press con­fer­ence which will be broad­cast live. Last year’s press con­fer­ence was watched by more than 7,000 view­ers around the world includ­ing, pre­sum­ably, olive oil pro­duc­ers them­selves look­ing for their brands among the win­ning entries.

The NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition is the largest olive oil qual­ity con­test and its annual list­ing of award win­ners is widely con­sid­ered the most trusted guide to the year’s best extra vir­gin olive oils. This year’s event has drawn an unprece­dented 1,000 entries, prompt­ing orga­niz­ers to close reg­is­tra­tion early.

Award win­ners will be listed in the NYIOOC’s offi­cial Index of the World’s Best Olive Oils and many will be avail­able through the Best Olive Oils Marketplace, the online por­tal where buy­ers can source the win­ning oils from retail­ers and dis­trib­u­tors who stock them.