S. Hemisphere Producers Reap Rewards of Challenging Harvest

Farmers, millers and bottlers from three continents combined to win 44 awards at the Southern Hemisphere edition of 2024 World Olive Oil Competition.

Familia Zuccardi earned a Gold Award for an organic Arauco, which was submitted by Manicaretti Italian Food Importers. (Photo: Famiilia Zuccardi)
By Daniel Dawson
Oct. 13, 2024 23:08 UTC
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Familia Zuccardi earned a Gold Award for an organic Arauco, which was submitted by Manicaretti Italian Food Importers. (Photo: Famiilia Zuccardi)

Farmers, millers and bot­tlers from seven coun­tries across three con­ti­nents com­bined to win 44 awards in the Southern Hemisphere divi­sion of the 2024 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

From Australia to Uruguay, pro­duc­ers over­came a chal­leng­ing crop year in which farm­ers had to con­tend with extreme weather events and pests. At the same time, millers and bot­tlers faced rolling black­outs and ris­ing pro­duc­tion costs.

I am excited and proud… This is a tes­ta­ment that extra vir­gin olive oil from South Africa is top-tier and deserves the respect it’s worth.- Loyiso Manga, owner, Ubuntu

South Africa led the way, with eight pro­duc­ers cap­i­tal­iz­ing on a boun­ti­ful har­vest to earn 12 awards from 19 entries, the sec­ond-high­est medal count in the country’s his­tory.

While the weather was widely help­ful for craft­ing award-win­ning extra vir­gin olive oil, pro­duc­ers strug­gled with the country’s rolling black­outs, which required care­ful coor­di­na­tion between har­vest and milling teams.

See Also:2024 NYIOOC Coverage

Quality was excep­tional, and we were able to get the crop off early before the heavy win­ter rain­fall,” said Brenda Wilkinson, co-owner of Rio Largo, which earned a Silver Award for a medium-inten­sity blend of Frantoio, Leccino and Coratina olives.

Our olive oils dis­played higher polyphe­nols but remained bal­anced with very good oil yields,” she added. Overall, our olive oils gave good aro­mas and a very clean mouth feel with lin­ger­ing pun­gency.”

First-time South African entrants cel­e­brated their World Competition suc­cess along with the estab­lished brands.

The pro­ducer behind Ubuntu, the country’s first black-owned olive oil brand, earned a Silver Award for a del­i­cate blend.

world-the-best-olive-oils-competitions-production-s-hemisphere-producers-reap-rewards-of-challenging-harvest-olive-oil-times

Loyiso Manga celebrated his debut award at the World Competition after enduring a very challenging year. (Photo: Ubuntu)

I am excited and proud, and I hope this will inspire all those who dare to dream, espe­cially my broth­ers and sis­ters in Africa,” said owner Loyiso Manga. This is a tes­ta­ment that extra vir­gin olive oil from South Africa is top-tier and deserves the respect it’s worth.”

Farmers and millers from Brazil fin­ished closely behind South Africa, earn­ing 11 awards from 14 entries.

Most of the country’s olive oil pro­duc­tion comes from the south­ern state of Rio Grande do Sul, which expe­ri­enced dis­as­trous flood­ing.

The floods, which destroyed cities and claimed thou­sands of lives, fol­lowed extreme weather that dam­aged most of the state’s olive groves, result­ing in a his­tor­i­cally poor har­vest.

Not far from Brazil, three pro­duc­ers from Chile com­bined to earn seven awards from 11 entries. Similarly to Brazil, the coun­try expe­ri­enced a sig­nif­i­cant pro­duc­tion decline, in part due to cli­matic fac­tors and the olive tree’s nat­ural alter­nate-bear­ing ten­den­cies.

We are very happy and hon­ored with this award,” said Fernando Carrasco Spano, the chief exec­u­tive of Olivos Ruta del Sol, which earned two awards. Over the years [win­ning at the NYIOOC] has allowed us to com­mu­ni­cate to our con­sumers the con­sol­i­da­tion of our qual­ity over time.”

On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, Australian pro­duc­ers earned seven awards from 12 entries. The coun­try expe­ri­enced a slight but expected pro­duc­tion decline, with heavy rain com­pli­cat­ing the har­vest.

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The quan­tity har­vested was gen­er­ally lower than pre­vi­ous years, not unex­pected given the effects of the spring rains,” said Stephen and Sui Tham, the co-own­ers of Cape Schanck Olive Estate.

Despite the adver­sity, the Victoria-based farm­ers man­aged a high-qual­ity har­vest, earn­ing Gold and Silver Awards for a medium Coratina and medium Picual, respec­tively.

world-the-best-olive-oils-competitions-production-s-hemisphere-producers-reap-rewards-of-challenging-harvest-olive-oil-times

Agroland earned two awards once again for its Colina de Garzón brand. (Photo: Agroland)

In South America, pro­duc­ers and bot­tlers from Argentina, Peru and Uruguay cel­e­brated award-win­ning fin­ishes to oth­er­wise chal­leng­ing har­vests.

Two pro­duc­ers from Mendoza, Argentina, each won a Gold Award. Meanwhile, Uruguay’s two largest olive oil pro­duc­ers com­bined to earn a Gold and two Silver Awards after the coun­try expe­ri­enced a dra­matic pro­duc­tion decline.

Finally, an importer and pro­ducer in Peru earned a Silver Award, craft­ing the country’s first award-win­ning extra vir­gin olive oils in the World Competition since 2014.

Winning the Silver Award at the NYOOC is a great honor and val­i­dates the effort and ded­i­ca­tion put into every stage of pro­duc­tion,” said Lourdes González, the head of sales and qual­ity assur­ance spe­cial­ist at pro­ducer Vallesur, which was awarded for a medium Criolla.

It con­firms that we are on the right path, com­mit­ted to excel­lence and offer­ing a prod­uct that meets the high­est qual­ity stan­dards,” she added. But fun­da­men­tally, this award moti­vates us to con­tinue improv­ing and share our pas­sion for olive oil with more peo­ple world­wide.”

See Also:Olive Oil Times World Ranking

Along with this val­i­da­tion, González said she expects the award to help the com­pany find new export oppor­tu­ni­ties, includ­ing in the United States.

We believe this award will high­light and sup­port the qual­ity of our TIQSI pre­mium extra vir­gin olive oil,” she said. We also hope that it will strengthen the trust of our cur­rent cus­tomers and attract new con­sumers inter­ested in high-end olive oils.”


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