Yale to Host Conference on Olive Oil, Plans to Establish Research Center

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Yale University’s School of Public Health is set to host its first con­fer­ence on olive oil next month.

The two-day event will bring together peo­ple from diverse dis­ci­plines to dis­cuss a vari­ety of top­ics includ­ing olive oil chem­istry and health, test­ing meth­ods, the impacts of cli­mate change and dis­ease on its cul­ti­va­tion, as well as the poten­tial for inno­va­tion in the sec­tor.

Tassos Kyriakides said he came up with the idea for the con­fer­ence after com­plet­ing the Olive Oil Sommelier Certification Program at the International Culinary Center, which is pro­duced by the Olive Oil Times Education Lab.

Kyriakides and the depart­ment chair at Yale’s School of Public Health, Vasilis Vasiliou, envi­sion the con­fer­ence as an annual event lead­ing even­tu­ally to the for­ma­tion of a cen­ter at Yale ded­i­cated to aggre­gat­ing and dis­sem­i­nat­ing olive oil knowl­edge as well as sup­port­ing projects and stud­ies.

“I knew some­thing had to come together from [my par­tic­i­pa­tion in the course],” Kyriakides told Olive Oil Times. ​“What I think drove the idea for this cen­ter in my mind was that there is all this infor­ma­tion out there from all these peo­ple and their per­spec­tives work­ing on these things.”

Among those attend­ing the con­fer­ence will be aca­d­e­mics, indus­try pro­fes­sion­als and trade groups from Greece, Italy, Spain and the United States. Kyriakides is expect­ing between 80 and 100 peo­ple to attend. He said that the responses from those invited to attend have been over­whelm­ingly pos­i­tive.

“There are a lot of dif­fer­ent peo­ple com­ing from their own per­spec­tive and the idea is that a cen­ter, such as this one, will func­tion as a facil­i­ta­tor of activ­i­ties that hap­pen all over the world,” he said.

“We feel that every­body will ben­e­fit from some­thing like that,” he said. ​“We see this as an attempt for indi­vid­u­als to con­tribute and give back to other cen­ters and orga­ni­za­tions based on what they do in their area.”

How exactly the cen­ter will work is yet to be deter­mined. Kyriakides plans on let­ting the two-day con­fer­ence run its course and tak­ing into account what every­one in atten­dance thinks before chart­ing a path for­ward.

The first day of the con­fer­ence will be ded­i­cated to pre­sen­ta­tions from a diverse array of indi­vid­u­als and fields, each dis­cussing what they are doing in the olive oil sec­tor. The sec­ond day will be more of an open dia­logue with peo­ple break­ing off into smaller groups. At the end of the day, every­one will get back together and share what they dis­cussed.

“At the end, we will re-envi­sion the out­put of this and draft guide­lines or a blue­print of how this cen­ter will work,” Kyriakides said, adding that he already has the back­ing of the dean of the School of Public Health.

Joseph R Profaci, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the North American Olive Oil Association (NAOOA), said he will be among the indus­try trade group rep­re­sen­ta­tives attend­ing the con­fer­ence.

Profaci told Olive Oil Times that the NAOOA has been look­ing for an aca­d­e­mic part­ner with which to estab­lish a multi-dis­ci­pli­nary olive oil cen­ter focussing on health and nutri­tion. The trade group had approached sev­eral other uni­ver­si­ties with the pro­posal but were pleas­antly sur­prised to hear this news com­ing out of Yale.

“I was very excited to see this idea spring from Kyriakides and Vasiliou, appar­ently with­out prompt­ing from the indus­try,” Profaci said. ​“Clearly, the key chal­lenge for the pro­posed Yale cen­ter, or any such cen­ter, will be find­ing sub­stan­tial and sus­tain­able sources of fund­ing.”

However, Kyriakides does not seem wor­ried about fund­ing the project.

“Starting some­thing like this, our idea is to draw sup­port from foun­da­tions and agen­cies that will sup­port projects geared toward the study of olive oil and any area of focus,” he said. “[This will] allow indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions to be able to apply for some fund­ing, some resources so they can con­tinue doing their work.”

If it were only up to Kyriakides, the cen­ter would pri­mar­ily focus on pub­lic health and nutri­tion, which is what got him involved with olive oil and the Mediterranean diet in the first place. He sees American con­sumers as under­e­d­u­cated about the health ben­e­fits of olive oil and believes this cen­ter could be one step in help­ing to change that.

“I think with my own bias being in pub­lic health and nutri­tion, [we should focus on] how we max­i­mize the abil­ity of this prod­uct,” he said. ​“In the U.S. we are behind in the edu­ca­tion and acknowl­edg­ment that this is a prod­uct that should be used, not just for the culi­nary qual­i­ties that it has, but also for the health ben­e­fits that it has.”

“Having a cen­ter that will gather and dis­sem­i­nate that infor­ma­tion at an aca­d­e­mic insti­tu­tion such as an Ivy League school def­i­nitely helps pro­mote that idea and give it weight,” he added.

The olive oil and health con­fer­ence will be held on October 3 and 4 at the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Connecticut.

• Olive Oil and Health: New Frontiers and Partnerships for Research and Education