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Olive Oil Promotion Program Gains Support from Stakeholders

By Paolo DeAndreis
May. 20, 2025 01:10 UTC
Summary Summary

The olive oil research and pro­mo­tion pro­gram pro­posed by the NAOOA to the USDA is gain­ing sup­port from importers, farm­ers, and stake­hold­ers, aim­ing to raise aware­ness about the health ben­e­fits and culi­nary uses of extra vir­gin olive oil. Despite the grow­ing con­sump­tion of olive oil in the U.S., there is a need for col­lab­o­ra­tion to increase aware­ness and con­sump­tion, with the pro­posed pro­gram seen as a way to achieve this by edu­cat­ing con­sumers about the dif­fer­ent grades and types of olive oil avail­able.

The olive oil research and pro­mo­tion pro­gram pro­posed to the United States Department of Agriculture by the North American Olive Oil Association (NAOOA) is receiv­ing grow­ing sup­port from importers, farm­ers and other stake­hold­ers.

The pro­posed indus­try-funded olive oil pro­mo­tion coop­er­a­tive aims to raise aware­ness about extra vir­gin olive oil’s health ben­e­fits and culi­nary uses.

Diet is one of the most pow­er­ful and mod­i­fi­able fac­tors influ­enc­ing chronic dis­ease in the U.S. Yet, extra vir­gin olive oil, one of the health­i­est fats, remains under­used in many American kitchens.- Rachelle Bross, co-owner, Olivaia’s OLA

“Growing olive oil cul­ture in the U.S. is not just impor­tant, it rep­re­sents a major shared oppor­tu­nity for importers, domes­tic and inter­na­tional pro­duc­ers, retail­ers, dis­trib­u­tors, chefs, dieti­tians, doc­tors and ulti­mately the wider pub­lic,” said Giovanni Quaratesi, head of global cor­po­rate affairs at Certified Origins, the sec­ond-largest importer of olive oil in the U.S.

“Despite the absence of a coor­di­nated pro­mo­tional effort, and with lim­ited but grow­ing domes­tic pro­duc­tion, the U.S. has become one of the largest olive oil mar­kets out­side of pro­duc­ing coun­tries,” he added. ​“Yet olive oil remains under­used and often mis­un­der­stood in every­day cook­ing.” 

International Olive Council (IOC) fig­ures reveal a dra­matic surge in U.S. olive oil con­sump­tion, from 88,000 tons in the 1990/91 crop year to a pro­jected 398,000 tons in 2024/25. This sub­stan­tial increase places the United States among the world’s lead­ing olive oil con­sumers.

Still, per capita annual con­sump­tion in the U.S. slightly exceeds one liter, com­pared to eight liters in Italy and 11 in Spain.

See Also:U.S. Sees Significant Growth in Organic Olive Oil Sales

According to mar­ket experts, the indus­try needs to col­lab­o­rate to increase United States olive oil con­sump­tion, and the NAOOA pro­gram is increas­ingly seen as a vehi­cle to achieve this.

“I work with California pro­duc­ers, some inter­na­tional ones as well as importers and dis­trib­u­tors. And I’m see­ing the enthu­si­asm grow­ing [for the NAOOA pro­posal],” Roberta Klugman, con­sul­tant at Klugman and Associates, told Olive Oil Times.

“When it was first launched, a few years ago, peo­ple were skep­ti­cal,” she added. ​“I was skep­ti­cal. Shortly after learn­ing more about the pro­gram, what it could do, we have seen a con­sen­sus among pro­duc­ers, importers, dis­trib­u­tors and retail­ers.”

Joseph Profaci, the NAOOA’s exec­u­tive direc­tor, said that the con­sen­sus among importers is ​“almost unan­i­mous” and that U.S.-based pro­duc­ers have strong sup­port.

The pro­posed pro­gram faces sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges in help­ing olive oil take root among U.S. physi­cians, law­mak­ers and house­holds.

“One of the ongo­ing chal­lenges is shift­ing the per­cep­tion of the olive oil cat­e­gory from a spe­cialty or occa­sional-use prod­uct to an every­day kitchen essen­tial,” Quaratesi explained. ​“A lot of progress has been made, yet only less than half of U.S. cit­i­zens use olive or extra vir­gin olive oil.” 

According to Samantha Dorsey, the pres­i­dent of California-based McEvoy Ranch, there is still much work to do to inform Americans about olive oil’s health ben­e­fits and culi­nary uses.

“A research and pro­mo­tion order would allow the olive oil indus­try to pool its resources to raise aware­ness about olive oil’s health ben­e­fits, incred­i­ble taste attrib­utes and under­ly­ing sus­tain­abil­ity story,” she said.

Dorsey added that while a uni­fied mes­sage is a clear ben­e­fit for the indus­try, the larger win could be for pub­lic health, should Americans begin using more olive oil reg­u­larly.

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“Just imag­ine how much chronic inflam­ma­tion we could help alle­vi­ate by hav­ing just a lit­tle more olive oil flow­ing at the din­ner table,” she said.

To boost aware­ness, farm­ers and pro­duc­ers told Olive Oil Times that help­ing U.S. con­sumers dis­tin­guish between olive oil grades and types should be a pri­or­ity.

“Olive oil is tricky to buy for many rea­sons,” Dorsey said. ​“It is per­ish­able, yet some­what shelf-sta­ble. It is hard to dis­tin­guish between grades and types of olive oil. It is usu­ally impos­si­ble to taste it before you buy it.” 

“All of these attrib­utes lead to con­sumer con­fu­sion, so any guid­ance that the indus­try can offer – through a research and pro­mo­tion order, for exam­ple — will ben­e­fit our con­sumers, too,” she added.

Although pub­lic inter­est in olive oil has grown, dri­ven mainly by its rec­og­nized health prop­er­ties, culi­nary appli­ca­tions and qual­ity lev­els remain unclear to much of the U.S. pop­u­la­tion.

“At times, pack­ag­ing, social media strate­gies, and mar­ket­ing invest­ments carry more weight than the prod­uct itself, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for solid qual­ity offer­ings to stand out and gain trac­tion with­out a sub­stan­tial bud­get and com­mu­ni­ca­tion team behind them,” Quaratesi said.

“A related chal­lenge is cat­e­gory seg­men­ta­tion,” he added. ​“The dif­fer­ences between extra vir­gin olive oil and olive oil — in terms of pro­duc­tion meth­ods, fla­vor pro­files, qual­ity stan­dards and price — are not always clearly com­mu­ni­cated on the shelf.”

Quaratesi sug­gested that build­ing trust and long-term growth in the cat­e­gory could depend on clearly com­mu­ni­cat­ing these dis­tinc­tions.

“In the U.S. mar­ket, non-extra-vir­gin olive oil typ­i­cally con­sists of a blend of refined olive oil and a small per­cent­age of extra vir­gin olive oil,” Quaratesi said.

“This for­mat offers an acces­si­ble entry point to the olive oil cat­e­gory for those explor­ing alter­na­tives to seed oils or other cook­ing fats, often at a lower price than extra vir­gin olive oil,” he added.

Quaratesi believes there is room for non-vir­gin and extra vir­gin olive oil in the mar­ket­place as long as con­sumers under­stand the dif­fer­ences in qual­ity and health ben­e­fits.

“Proper shelf seg­men­ta­tion and posi­tion­ing can help pre­vent con­fu­sion and guide busy shop­pers toward the prod­uct that best suits their needs,” Quaratesi added.

Producers at Olivaia’s OLA in cen­tral California high­lighted the vital role of con­sumer edu­ca­tion, pri­mar­ily through tast­ings and events.

“One of the com­ments we have received repeat­edly is ​‘this does not taste like olive oil,’” co-owner Giulio Zavolta said. ​“While we take a lot of plea­sure in explain­ing why our award-win­ning extra vir­gin olive oil is indeed what olive oil should taste like, the com­ment is also indica­tive of the work we as an indus­try need to do to raise the level of under­stand­ing of what a true extra vir­gin olive oil is.”

“We need to make sure con­sumers make the con­nec­tion between taste and health attrib­utes,” he added.

Rachelle Bross, co-owner of Olivaia’s OLA, reflected on the national impact if olive oil became a true sta­ple of the American diet.

“Diet is one of the most pow­er­ful and mod­i­fi­able fac­tors influ­enc­ing chronic dis­ease in the U.S.,” she said. ​“Yet, extra vir­gin olive oil, one of the health­i­est fats, remains under­used in many American kitchens.”

“Replacing less healthy fats with olive oil is a sim­ple, deli­cious way to boost over­all health,” Bross added.

However, Quaratesi noted a sig­nif­i­cant gap between the strong inter­est in healthy eat­ing and the knowl­edge required to iden­tify and use high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil. 

“Awareness tends to focus on broad health ben­e­fits, or a brand specif­i­cally, but often lacks depth when it comes to prac­ti­cal top­ics like proper stor­age, culi­nary appli­ca­tions, fla­vor pro­files or how to eval­u­ate fresh­ness and qual­ity,” he said.

“Expanding this under­stand­ing can help shift olive oil from a per­ceived pre­mium or occa­sional-use prod­uct to a trusted, every­day kitchen sta­ple,” Quaratesi added.

Zavolta said that the com­bi­na­tion of low extra vir­gin olive oil con­sump­tion and local pro­duc­tion in the U.S. means the indus­try needs to work harder to get the mes­sage across, espe­cially to prospec­tive farm­ers look­ing for more drought-resilient crops.

“If every physi­cian, pol­i­cy­maker, and other key stake­holder fully under­stood the health ben­e­fits asso­ci­ated with olive oil con­sump­tion, every­one would be eat­ing so much more olive oil daily,” Dorsey added.

“It is a chal­lenge to refrain from over-evan­ge­liz­ing on behalf of olive oil because it feels so spe­cial,” she said. ​“That’s the great part about mar­ket­ing olive oil: it is legit­i­mately good for you and all of us who know this are eager to tell every­one who will lis­ten.” 

“This is again where a research and pro­mo­tion order can allow us to refine our mes­sage so that the indus­try can speak to these ben­e­fits in a pos­i­tive and uni­fied voice,” Dorsey con­cluded.

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