Radio's 'PRI' Follows Greek Producer's Road to NYIOOC Win

For an olive oil pro­ducer in Lesbos, Greece in the throes of the Greek eco­nomic cri­sis the choice was clear: Either sell the fam­i­ly’s olive trees or add value by focus­ing on qual­ity.

Myrta Kalampoka said she and her hus­band, Nikos, worked as teach­ers and part-time olive oil pro­duc­ers when the econ­omy tanked and their salaries were halved. Kalampoka told Public Radio International (PRI) reporter Daniella Cheslow that it was then that she decided to set out to craft one of the world’s best olive oils.

After vis­it­ing the farmer last sum­mer, Cheslow was at the 2017 New York International Olive Oil Competition to cap her pro­file of Kalampoka, the pro­ducer of the Eirini Plomariou olive oil brand for PRI’s The World pro­gram, a global news radio, audio and multi-plat­form pro­gram with the goal of ​“bring­ing inter­na­tional jour­nal­ism that illu­mi­nates the world to US lis­ten­ers.”

PRI cur­rently dis­trib­utes the show to more than 280 pub­lic radio sta­tions across the United States, accord­ing to its web­site.

The Kalampoka fam­ily did it again, earn­ing a Silver Award when the win­ners were revealed at the April 27 event — the com­pa­ny’s third straight win at the world’s largest olive oil com­pe­ti­tion.

Kalampoka said she was grate­ful to make a liv­ing, Cheslow reported, when so many Greeks had no salary at all.

“What we have is only the qual­ity of our olive oil,” Kalampoka said. ​“If it was not that, I could­n’t stay in Greece.”