World’s Best Olive Oils for 2020 Unveiled

Summary

The NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition revealed this year’s best extra vir­gin olive oils, with 584 win­ning brands announced through an inter­ac­tive online pre­sen­ta­tion. The com­pe­ti­tion attracted over 475,000 views, syn­di­cated news world­wide, and intro­duced new tools like a Retail Finder and a food-pair­ing appli­ca­tion, all while adapt­ing to remote judg­ing due to the coro­n­avirus pan­demic.

The eighth edi­tion of the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition has com­pleted its week-long reveal of this year’s best extra vir­gin olive oils.

The one-by-one unveil­ing ran from Monday until today when the last of the contest’s 584 win­ning brands went pub­lic via an inter­ac­tive online pre­sen­ta­tion at 10:45 AM (EST).

The Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils was viewed more than 475,000 times this week by pro­duc­ers, dis­trib­u­tors, retail­ers, food indus­try pro­fes­sion­als, inter­na­tional press, and the gen­eral pub­lic, orga­niz­ers reported.

News of the win­ners has been syn­di­cat­ing world­wide and hun­dreds of arti­cles on the win­ners were being shared through the NYIOOC’s feed of dis­patches from Olive Oil Times writ­ers and edi­tors.

The new Retail Finder on the Index pin­pointed the phys­i­cal places the win­ning brands can be found through­out the world, and the Best Olive Oils Marketplace already began pop­u­lat­ing with the awarded oils directly from the pro­duc­ers and their dis­trib­u­tors.

Winning pro­duc­ers and enthu­si­asts shared their ela­tion through a steady social media buzz that rip­pled around the world and intro­duced ever more onlook­ers to the impor­tance and value of high-qual­ity olive oils.

A food-pair­ing appli­ca­tion that uses an algo­rithm devel­oped by the NYIOOC and Olive Oil Times sug­gested award-win­ning oils to match with pop­u­lar dishes, as more peo­ple than ever explored the detailed infor­ma­tion on regions, cul­ti­vars, tast­ing terms, pro­duc­ers and their sto­ries.

But behind the scenes and front-end tools, this NYIOOC has been quite dif­fer­ent from past edi­tions.

In March, when the nor­mal ways of life and busi­ness were dis­rupted by the coro­n­avirus pan­demic, orga­niz­ers of the com­pe­ti­tion designed an inno­v­a­tive remote-judg­ing sys­tem that allowed the analy­ses to take place in the homes and offices of the inter­na­tional panel of 17 expert tasters.

Curtis Cord, the pres­i­dent of the NYIOOC and edi­tor-in-chief of Olive Oil Times said today he was ​“extremely sat­is­fied” with the results.

“I couldn’t be more pleased with our judg­ing and tech­ni­cal teams who have shown yet again extra­or­di­nary ded­i­ca­tion and pro­fes­sion­al­ism at the high­est stan­dards for which the NYIOOC is known and olive oil pro­duc­ers deserve.” Cord said.

Cord has long stated that the aim of the indus­try’s pre­mier annual event was not only to cel­e­brate the year’s award win­ners but to rec­og­nize the value all pro­duc­ers pro­vide and edu­cate the pub­lic on mat­ters of olive oil qual­ity.

“The 2020 edi­tion has made great strides in our mis­sion to edu­cate peo­ple every­where on the value of high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oils,” Cord said, ​“and the heroic efforts by all who are ded­i­cated to craft­ing them.”