President Trump campaigned for a second term saying that “tariff” was the most beautiful word in the English language, so it was easy to predict that tariffs would be a hallmark of this administration.

But they may not be so beautiful for the millions of Americans who love and rely on olive oil.

Olive oil is an essential, nutritious food. It’s the healthiest cooking oil people can use. And the United States cannot meet more than 2% of domestic demand. Since American olive trees don’t have a magic switch to supercharge production, tariffs would only hurt American consumers by driving up prices.

That’s the message the North American Olive Oil Association (NAOOA) has been conveying to policymakers and federal agencies since early this year. We aim to show leaders in Washington, D.C. that tariffs on olive oil would essentially be a tax on the health of the American people.

We are optimistic that olive oil has some natural allies in this administration. For example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), led by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) caucus in Congress have made nutrition a major focus.

Senator Roger Marshall, M.D, a founder of the MAHA caucus, gave an interview in which he effectively articulated a strong science-based case against tariffs on healthy foods like olive oil for which there is no adequate domestic supply:

“About 70% of your health outcomes are determined by you,” the Senator said. “It’s determined by what you eat and what you’re surrounded by. By the time you come to my office as a doctor, I can impact maybe 10 or 20% of your health outcomes…we need to make these healthy foods affordable, available as well…”

Unfortunately, we know what happens when olive oil becomes more expensive. Over the past two years, poor harvests have resulted in much higher retail prices, including a 25% average increase in 2024 alone. As a result, two million fewer American households bought olive oil in 2024 than in 2023.

While that’s terrible news for the olive oil category, the data show that virtually all families who stopped buying earned less than $100,000 annually. The most significant drop came in families earning $40,000-$49,000 annually.

It’s easy to predict that tariffs would similarly harm lower-income families most of all. Sadly, these Americans would benefit the most from better dietary options to improve their health outcomes, but for whom even the least expensive olive oil will become unaffordable.

Increasing U.S. production is often an important and worthy goal of tariff policies, but in the case of olive oil, current domestic production is tiny relative to consumption, and appreciably increasing it can’t and won’t happen for the foreseeable future without policies supporting more investment. Olive trees take time to grow, and the investment needed is significant.

These are all topics that were covered at a recent event, “Drops of Health,” that the NAOOA co-hosted with the Olive Oil World Congress (OOWC) in Washington, D.C. Held one week before President Trump’s April 2, 2025, tariff announcement, Drops of Health attracted a lot of interest among Hill staffers, federal agency personnel and media.

Coupled with NAOOA’s broader outreach efforts, the OOWC event provided a platform to educate lawmakers and policymakers about olive oil and how it’s consumed and produced in this country. Indeed, Congressman Deluzio attended and spoke about how his ethnic heritage helped instill his deep respect for olive oil.

Representative Deluzio’s comments echoed sentiments we heard from other members of congress and their staff from both sides of the aisle in meetings this year trying to cultivate champions for olive oil issues in general, including our pending petitions for a standard of identity and an ag-product promotion program, which are before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture respectively. Both of these initiatives should resonate with the MAHA agenda, as should avoiding tariffs on healthy foods for which there is no adequate domestic supply.

Anyone’s guess is where the tariff saga will go from here. Yesterday, the President announced a 90-day pause that effectively reduces the tariffs to 10% for now. What is clear, however, is that our industry must continue to promote our tried-and-true health message to leaders in Washington, D.C.

Through that effort, we can and will demonstrate how important it is to keep this essential, healthy food affordable and accessible to all Americans.

Joseph R. Profaci is executive director of the North American Olive Oil Association

Àlya, a monovarietal produced from Chetoui olives, recently won a Silver Award at the 2025 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

“I already knew Chetoui was rich in polyphenols, but when the laboratory returned the results, we were surprised by just how high the polyphenols were in our extra virgin olive oil,” Ayed said.

Ayed’s family has cultivated the renowned Tunisian olive variety in two locations for decades. The award-winning olive oil is produced from approximately 5,000 olive trees, exposed to the elements on a hillside grove.

The local microclimate might be one reason for the exceptionally high polyphenolic content, which Ayed said was found to exceed 1,800 milligrams per kilogram of olive oil. “It has changed over the years, and recently, the trees underwent significant stress,” she noted, referring to the severe drought affecting Tunisia in recent seasons.

“When these conditions occur, the tree defends itself by increasing its polyphenols,” she added. “To stay strong, the tree develops these compounds. When we consume them, they help protect us as well. It’s an amazing example of synergy between nature and humans.”

Due to its own olive mill and dedicated workforce, the farm managed a very early harvest and immediately pressed the olives. “This also enhanced the phenolic profile of our product,” Ayed said.

Last August, the Àlya brand was launched to promote extra virgin olive oil as a health remedy, not just a food product. “The word Àlya itself means ‘to elevate your health,’” Ayed said.

“The whole purpose of this project is to take olive oil, which we know is excellent for health, and give it a form factor that allows customers to use it daily to enhance their well-being,” she added.

Ayed referenced recent research showing that consuming extra virgin olive oil before meals can improve digestion. “Promoting it for this reason is mostly a new approach,” she said.

According to Ayed, the project was inspired by rediscovering ancient wisdom surrounding olive oil.

“It all started with my own experience. When I moved to the United States, I worked in a stressful environment, ate poorly and my health suffered,” Ayed said.

Ayed followed her physicians’ recommendations, taking supplements, prebiotics and probiotics.

“I was taking many things, but I wasn’t improving. Once back in Tunisia, my grandmother insisted I consume olive oil each morning on an empty stomach, with a bit of bread,” Ayed said.

“That’s when my health began improving significantly, reducing inflammation and normalizing digestion,” she added.

Ayed noted that a growing body of research supports the daily consumption of extra virgin olive oil, particularly extra virgin olive oil rich in polyphenols.

“We began exploring studies showing extra virgin olive oil benefits for digestion and gut health—effectively acting as a prebiotic and helping nutrient absorption,” Ayed said.

The new project aims to introduce these benefits to the U.S. market. “Many Americans struggle with insulin resistance and chronic conditions often linked to diet,” Ayed said. “So, that’s where I come from.”

“I blended this ancient remedy we’ve used forever with modern health practices. It’s as if ancient remedies meet modern health,” she added.  “Our extra virgin olive oil is very bitter, green and peppery. We’ve been cultivating these trees for over 20 years. We produce small batches, always ensuring the highest quality.”

According to Ayed, the biggest challenge for producers of high-quality extra virgin olive oil is reaching customers and raising awareness about the product’s health benefits.

“Through social media and live events, we educate people about extra virgin olive oil health benefits and its effectiveness in managing specific health conditions,” Ayed said.

A key issue remains the quality of extra virgin olive oil available to American consumers. “Many olive oils sold in the U.S. aren’t very good, often not fresh at all,” said Ayed, emphasizing that Àlya is not intended as a mainstream product but as health support for discerning consumers.

As a result, Àlya’s production will not expand in the short term. “Our primary goal isn’t expanding production,” she said. “It’s maintaining our high polyphenol levels and demonstrating to customers that we never compromise quality.”

It should be stressed that the initial studies concerning the olive decline in Salento attributed the phenomenon to a number of pathogens: the “complex” disease, including also some fungi. But, upon the identification of Xylella fastidiosa subsp. pauca, the bacterium has been retained as the sole causal agent of Olive Quick Decline Syndrome (OQDS).

Consequently, from 2015 onward, every decline symptom identified on olive trees, such as leaf, twig and branch dieback, was attributed to the bacterium, and this assumption was largely conveyed to farmers, agronomists, journalists and politicians.

During the monitoring surveys, the regional inspectors have, consequently, collected samples from olive trees that visibly show some of such symptoms just because they are suspected to be caused by Xylella fastidiosa.

By checking the data collected by the regional phytosanitary inspectors of Puglia, one question arises. If, from 2016 until 2022, the percentage of olive trees that visibly show symptoms of decline tested positive for the occurrence of Xylella fastidiosa is in a range of 22.5 percent to 3.21 percent, which other pathogens caused the symptoms in the remaining 78 to 97 percent of olive trees?

Within this scenario, it should be outlined that, in the pathogenicity tests, Xylella fastidiosa subsp. pauca causes some leaf wilting on the inoculated plants more than one year after the inoculation, whereas fungi belonging to Neofusicoccum spp., isolated in the same areas of Salento affected by the olive disease, are capable of killing the whole plant in two to three weeks (Scortchini et al., 2023).

The wide occurrence of fungi and their aggressiveness could explain the vast majority of symptomatic olive trees sampled and resulted in negative for the bacterium.

It is possible that in the infected areas of Salento, Xylella fastidiosa occurs to a great extent but what is observed is that phytopathogenic fungi are also contemporaneously present in the same tree that hosts Xylella fastidiosa.

A more comprehensive approach to the study concerning the olive decline should be to also consider other phytopathogens involved in the complex disease currently affecting olive trees in Puglia.

It should be added, that, nowadays, many pathological emergencies that affect woody species are caused by a number of phytopathogens that can act between them and in combination also with abiotic predisposing factors.

In any case, in Salento, neither Xylella fastidiosa nor OQDS could have killed “tens of millions” of olive trees, considering that in the province of Lecce, the olive trees are estimated to be “only” 11 million, and many of these are still visibly healthy and productive. Therefore, this narrative is absolutely unfounded.

A second aspect of the rebuttal concerns the low incidence of Xylella fastidiosa in the demarcated areas. We do not deny that the aim of the monitoring surveys is to find infected trees and that a low occurrence of the bacterium has to be expected within the “buffer” areas. We point out the unnecessary sacrifice of asymptomatic centennial and millennial olive trees that surround the infected one within a radius of 50 meters.

According to epidemiological models that revealed “the negligible role of the asymptomatic trees” in further spreading the disease, the additional uprooting would not seem useful.

It should also be added that the “blind” tree uprooting, irrespective of the real occurrence of the bacterium within the olive crown, appears quite obsolete, especially by taking into consideration the great number of very sensitive and reliable detection techniques recently developed for Xylella fastidiosa.

Moreover, many autochthonous olive trees in Salento, which have been infected since 2015, are perfectly healthy and productive today.

Some years ago, it was predicted that in the whole of Salento “will remain just 50 olive trees, a sort of museum of the past”.

Nowadays, such a statement appears quite far from the reality since, thanks to field management strategies that allow the olive groves to vegetate and yield, many farmers are continuing to take care of their olive groves planted with Ogliarola salentina and Cellina di Nardò.

In addition, a vast phenomenon of resilience is currently observed in Salento, also including the areas where the initial outbreak of the disease was reported.

Margherita Ciervo is a researcher and professor at the University of Foggia’s Department of Economy, Management and Territory.

Marco Scortichini is a researcher at the Council for Agricultural Research and Economics’ (CREA) research center for olive, fruit and citrus crops in Rome.

The researchers looked at 18 projects – known as REDD and REDD+ projects – overseen by the United Nations to slow deforestation in Africa, Asia and South America. They determined that the 18 offsetting projects produced millions of carbon credits based on “crude calculations that inflated their conservation impact.”

The research found that only 6 percent of 89 million credits created by the offset scheme were linked with additional carbon reductions from forest preservation. More than two-thirds of the credits came from projects that either did not or only slightly reduced deforestation.

Carbon credits come in three forms and can be sold by project developers to brokers or end consumers seeking to offset their carbon emissions.

There are 30 compliance carbon markets globally covering about one-fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions, trading $2.8 billion (€2.62 billion) of carbon credits. Separately, voluntary carbon markets exist for companies and individuals seeking to offset their carbon emissions outside of compliance carbon markets.

According to data from Ember, a climate and energy think tank, carbon credits are currently priced at slightly more than €83 per ton in the European Union. In California, carbon prices reached a record-high $37.49 (€35.05) per ton in July.

The 18 offsetting projects were issuing avoided emissions credits produced by preserving the rainforest and not cutting it down, which the researchers found were prone to overestimation.

Another type of carbon credit comes from removing emissions through carbon capture or planting trees. While some olive farmers are already taking advantage of carbon markets to earn extra revenue, there is plenty of room for more growers to take advantage of olive trees’ carbon capture potential.

Estimates for how much carbon dioxide is sequestered by olive trees vary significantly, ranging from 2.7 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilogram of olive oil produced in super-high-density olive groves to 11 in traditional rainfed olive groves.

Globally, there are about 11.5 million hectares of olive groves, of which approximately 8 million are planted traditionally.

Efforts in Europe are underway to help olive growers of all sizes benefit from the ability of their trees to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

For example, the Green Economy and CO2 project verified that participating growers sequestered three tons of carbon per hectare of olive groves on average.

Project organizers estimate that the 160 farmers in Italy and Croatia sequestered 6,500 tons of carbon dioxide over three years, with a value of €539,500 in today’s market.

Along with publicly-funded initiatives, various private sector actors are also working to connect olive farmers with companies seeking mandatory voluntary carbon credits.

In Italy, Alberami calculates how many tons of carbon dioxide small-scale olive farmers are sequestering and connects them with buyers.

“When grown with conventional farming, traditional olive tree placement of a maximum six per six meters can produce up to 10 or 12 carbon credits,” co-founder Francesco Musardo told Olive Oil Times in a 2022 interview.

Olive growers who follow organic and regenerative farming best practices, including planting cover crops between rows of olive trees and practicing no-till agriculture, can sequester even more carbon dioxide.

“The same tree grown organically will absorb more than two or three times that quantity,” Musardo said. “This might give new financial incentives to go organic to many growers.”

Based on these calculations, organic olive growers could earn nearly €3,000 per tree each year (at current carbon prices).

According to the Cambridge University and VU Amsterdam study, the 18 forest preservation and reforestation projects covered nearly 7 million hectares.

If the equivalent land were planted with traditional olive groves, they could sequester about 21 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, valued at €1.74 billion worth of carbon credits.

Verifying carbon credits for removed emissions is easier to do than it is for avoided emissions. As a result, better integration of olive growers of all types into global carbon markets could be a credible alternative to the evident flaws of some forest preservation projects.

Olive growers would enjoy an additional revenue stream and be encouraged to follow more sustainable practices. At the same time, emitters could be assured their carbon credits make a difference.

• BloombergNEF

Record-breaking high spring temperatures in 2022 have been followed by unseasonable drought (and then extreme flooding) in 2023. Climate change has arrived, and the olive oil industry might be first in the firing line. We could be facing a period of volatility, disruption, and, at worst, ecological collapse.

All-time highs in global prices are the first impact of the crisis. Great news for farmers with yield. But bad for processors, brands, and customers. High prices mean substitution with cheaper cooking oils and incentivize fraud by providers. And booms almost always lead to busts, which can wipe out investments predicated on those higher prices. As they say in the energy sector, “the cure for high prices is high prices.”

For brands and processors, the obvious response is to find new supply and start planting in other regions — the more efficient, the better. So, investment in super-high-density groves in Portugal seems to be accelerating, and in Tunisia, the other great area of recent output growth, the government’s export promotion strategy is also to push for “renewal” of current production by super-high-density cultivation.

But doing the same thing all over again might be a mistake.

My company, Amfora, sells extra virgin olive oil from regenerative agriculture farmers. We’re strong believers in the science and the benefits of soil regeneration.

From this perspective, the current crisis in Andalusia is not a surprise. It is the long-foretold result of biodiversity collapse, soil degradation, broken water cycles, and, in turn, the input-intensive techniques that super-high-density olive farming encourages.

Using this crisis to extend input-intensive practices won’t help our industry adapt to climate change but rather make it more vulnerable. Ultimately, it will spread ecological disaster to as yet unaffected regions.

How input-intensive groves damage ecosystems is easy to understand. Where centenary groves are ripped out to create high-density rows, demand for nutrients increases beyond the capacity of unnurtured soil to provide and renew itself.

Artificial fertilizer meets that demand but, at the same time, disrupts microbial-fungal exchange networks that we now understand support soil life, reducing natural fertility further. To reduce competition for food and water, farmers apply herbicide to kill weeds, creating bare soil and denuding biodiversity that supports natural predators of pests such as the olive fly. Pesticide becomes necessary to maintain quality and yield. Fungicide, too, is needed to support trees now more susceptible to infections, killing any beneficial fungi that remain.

So now much of Andalusian olive cultivation exists in a monoculture desert, maintained only by chemical inputs — rocky dry ground, dirt, not soil, containing little organic matter and holding very little water; the plant and soil evapotranspiration that previously created rain has disappeared. Increased water demand can only come from local aquifers, which are no longer renewed. When rain does come, it stays on the surface and creates flooding.

This is a self-reinforcing cascade: a positive feedback loop that explains what we’re witnessing in 2023. Hydrologists call the end game “drought-fire-flood.” We can see this at work in California, another region where high-density agroforestry is the rule. While Andalusia has, at least so far, been spared the fire, flood and drought both appear new and persistent features.

So what now? How sure are we this is real? Do we need to write off billions invested in intensive olive oil production in Southern Spain? What can we do?

Firstly, it’s obvious that no one knows. Two consecutive failed harvests might be a freak event. The 2024/25 harvest might be huge, and prices may normalize. New sources of supply might come online, offsetting volatility in Andalusian output.

But even if we can’t be sure structural change is here, we can measure its potential impact. If it’s at least possible that something has broken in Andalusia, responsible for almost 40 percent of global olive oil production, it could be a national and industry-wide ecological, economic and social catastrophe. A response is needed from government and business.

Happily, it is too soon to write the region off. Olive trees aren’t meant to destroy ecosystems. They’re a regional keystone species; they can hold the land together, drawing water from deep underground for use by other species, providing rich habitat and other environmental services — not to mention delicious and healthy nutrition for human communities. They can do so again.

The solutions are not new or hard; we already know what to do. Spanish scientists, such as Millán Millán, director of the Center for Environmental Studies of the Mediterranean in Valencia, have been researching water cycles and how to fix them for decades.

We know plants help create their own rain. Re-vegetating wasted land and slowing runoff from watersheds using cisterns, trenches and swales are all solutions at a landscape level. Creating biodiversity refuges such as hedges and corridors to bring back predators can reduce the need for biocides.

As Dimitri Tsitos of the Arbo-Innova Project points out, planting cover crops in high-density groves can greatly contribute to adding fertility, reducing ground temperatures, and boosting soil water retention. Arbo-Innova is interesting, a brand-new initiative to help regenerate high-density groves in Iberia, supported by leading consultants such as Soil Capital Farming.

Landscape-level adaptations might reduce areas under cultivation and thus output per farm. But plot-level savings in input costs can mean farms make more profit. Farmers could see increases in overall yield as soils come back to life.

Mindset shifts are needed; plowed soil between trees was always the sign of a “tidy” grove. Instead, farmers should take pride in rich plant biomass and biodiversity, knowing root exudate exchange is feeding their trees.

No-till cover is just a start; animal integration, even syntropics, are possible future interventions. Better tasting and more nutritious oil could mean improved pricing and opportunities to reform the industry.

New marketing models, such as Amfora’s, can help, too; we cut out intermediaries, bringing regenerative farmers a greater share of final pricing. Overall, we’ve just scratched the surface of the productivity gains from the regeneration revolution.

Climate change is global, but the world is made up of landscapes; there are simple actions farmers can take to protect and renew theirs. Collectively, we can head off disaster and even make things better and more resilient. Acknowledge the problem and act.

Eurof Uppington is the CEO and founder of Amfora, a Swiss-based olive oil retailer focused on promoting sustainability.

I probably receive twenty proposals a year to attend such gatherings of researchers, usually with airfare and expense accommodations. I seldom go.

Once in a while, I’ll open the conference program attached to the invitation to find that I’m already listed as a speaker on the schedule. And this is from scientists whose job is to establish facts.

This one is called “Second Health Matters Convention on EVOO, Phenols, Fatty Acids and the Mediterranean Diet.” It might not be the most compelling title, but the hotel looks fine.

I get it that researchers have grant money they need to spend, and a few days of roundtable discussions on the Costa del Sol is bound to yield scientific breakthroughs, but I’ll be passing on this one, too.

The conference coincides with a competition called the “The World’s Best Healthy extra virgin olive oil Contest” — another showstopper of a title.

The contest ranks entries based on their content of “biophenols, oleocanthal and fatty acids,” according to their website, in contrast to the taste tests by sensory experts employed by most international competitions, including the NYIOOC.

A few years ago, Boundary Bend — the Australian company that has done a lot for our industry — was circulating press releases that their Cobram Estate brand had been named the “world’s healthiest olive oil” by the Malaga contest.

I went on record criticizing Boundary Bend’s claim in an editorial that questioned the notion that one extra virgin olive oil could be declared healthier than another if it had more of a certain phenol. Experts I consulted, including the guy who discovered oleocanthal, agreed it was a reach.

Perhaps in response to my article, these well-meaning researchers, who I’m sure are just trying to draw attention to the health benefits of extra virgin olive oil, pivoted from referring to the awarded brand as the world’s healthiest olive oil to the best healthy olive oil.

This year, the contest received less than 50 entries, which means producers and the public care no more than I do about the event. But the conference in Malaga, which will feature the few dozen winners of the best whatever competition, will certainly bring together the camp within our industry that I’ll call the phenatics.

These folks have been trumpeting extra virgin olive oil as a functional food (which it certainly is) and seem to share the belief that the phenolic profile and medicinal properties, as measured in a lab, should be the focus when determining the value for the consumer.

I won’t get into the chemistry here because it bores me to tears. I suspect many consumers might feel the same.

Polyphenols are present in all extra virgin olive oils. Certain cultivars and production variables lead to higher levels of phenols. Still, we don’t know the optimal numbers, and it might be that consuming moderate amounts often will have a more significant effect on health than getting a megadose occasionally.

But I’ve always been a little put off by their zealotry, which can read like an indictment:

“Tastings are essential for EVOO, but they cannot be judged by a partial jury, which is one on which the palates and smells of those juries depend,” says the organizer of the conference José Amérigo, the same guy who invited me to attend.

“It is no use to the consumer who has different tastes and smells. The only thing that guarantees that an extra virgin olive oil is beneficial for the health of the consumer is the nutritional information, which must be attached to the bottle.”

And then there was this:

“You cannot continue to deceive the good faith of the extra virgin olive oil producers, you have to tell them the truth,” Amérigo admonishes. “And the truth is based on chemistry, the other is peanuts.”

But Amérigo certainly knows the real truth is that sometimes good chemistry tastes like peanuts.
Take Dr. Gundry, the Beverly Hills charlatan who is making a killing selling high-phenolic lampante oil that one expert called “the worst oil I have ever tasted.” If chemistry is everything, give it to me straight and keep the motor oil.

Extra virgin olive oil should be an easy sell. For thousands of years, it has occupied the cornerstone of the healthiest dietary regimens while making anything it touches more delicious than it was before.

Yet consumers are still utterly bewildered and uninformed on matters of olive oil quality. We’ve seen sustained international campaigns by thousands of producers and stakeholders to clear the air by focussing on how high-quality olive oil should taste.

Extra virgin olive oil is, by its very definition, fruity, bitter and pungent. Bitterness and pungency are direct indications of the presence of phenols. Consumers are slowly warming up to more bitter oils, as they already have for chocolate, beer and coffee, where some bitterness is recognized as an indication of quality.

Beyond that, EVOOs are classified as delicate, medium intensity, or robust — which are helpful suggestions when choosing an oil for a particular culinary application.

The phenatics don’t want to hear all of that. They seem to think the best way to add value is through a summary of chemical compositions — as if that will dispel the confusion that abounds.

There are regions, terroirs, cultivars and processing techniques that yield oils with unique sensory and chemical characteristics. The diversity of extra virgin olive oils worldwide is precious, and we must celebrate and protect them all.

Our industry is still working to fix a sullied reputation earned through centuries of dishonesty and deceit when the “extra virgin” on the label rarely reflected what was inside. Of course, we could get away with it for so long because consumers never knew how to taste olive oil for themselves to determine quality.

Through educational initiatives and an army of ambassadors, we’re finally seeing a growing understanding among consumers that choosing extra virgin olive oil isn’t rocket science.

Wait until they’re asked to read a rundown of phenolic compounds. Ask them to trust what the label says without any way of verifying it, just like in the old days.

Unless they have a lab in their pantry.

The OGCC is unhappy after the WTO decided that the European Union is entitled to subsidize its farmers, arguing that it gives them an unfair advantage.

“Make no mistake, the enormous olive subsidies being provided by the European Union and Spain, and the deliberate efforts to dump ripe olives from Spain into the U.S. market, have allowed the Spanish industry to take almost all our U.S. foodservice business and put our retail business at risk,” said Michael Silveira, the OGCC chairman.

“Today, the anti-dumping and countervailing [anti-subsidy] duties imposed by the U.S. government have given our family olive farmers and thousands of allied workers hope for the future and time to revive the industry,” he added.

The OGCC chairman further accused the E.U. and Spain of facilitating the country’s “unfair rock-bottom prices in the U.S. market” by using complicated and “nontransparent farm payments.”

However, the WTO ruled that the U.S. anti-subsidy tariffs imposed on black Spanish table olive imports in 2018 were illegal, with the WTO adding that the argument in support of the tariffs was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy works.

In fact, the U.S. provides its own farmers with tens of billions of dollars of subsidies each year. The government could make similar payments to California olive farmers but chooses not to.

According to data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), direct government aid (subsidies) accounted for 39 percent of net farm income in 2020, with farmers receiving a record-high $46.5 billion from the government.

Chris Edwards, the director of tax policy studies at the Cato Insitute, a libertarian think tank, and a former manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the four largest accounting firms in the world, said the U.S. government “protects farmers against fluctuations in prices, revenues and yields,” and “subsidizes their conservation efforts, insurance coverage, marketing, export sales, research and other activities.”

However, the major benefactors of these subsidies are large industrial farmers who grow corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and rice in the Midwest. Small olive farmers in California tend to miss out, but were still eligible for direct payments of up to $250,000 to make up for lost productivity during the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) farm subsidy database, California is home to 3.4 percent of U.S. farms and received just 2.2 percent of all federal farm subsidies released in 2019, the last year for which a complete data set are available. By comparison, Iowa, which is home to 4.2 percent of U.S. farms, received 8.7 percent of all federal aid.

Of the $591 million earmarked for California farmers in 2019 (the USDA spent $26.9 billion on subsidies that year), 92 percent did not collect subsidies and those who did were mostly growing cotton, rice, wheat, corn and barley or raising livestock.

“Despite the rhetoric of ‘preserving the family farm,’ the vast majority of farmers do not benefit from federal farm subsidy programs and most of the subsidies go to the largest and most financially secure farm operations,” the EWG said. “Small commodity farmers qualify for a mere pittance, while producers of meat, fruits, and vegetables are almost completely left out of the subsidy game.”

By comparison, Spain will receive about €6.8 billion ($7.7 billion) each year for the next seven years from the European Union as part of the latest CAP.

While 75 percent of the money from the CAP will be awarded to the country’s 695,000 farmers in the form of direct payments, these subsidies are capped at €60,000 ($68,000) per farm or €100,000 ($113,000) per company with multiple farms.

Furthermore, an investigation by the European Data Journalism Network found that small European farmers were largely in the same boat as their U.S. counterparts.

During the previous iteration of the CAP, 76 percent of the E.U.‘s 6.5 million farmers received 15 percent of available funds. At the time, money was largely allocated per hectare, so larger farmers enjoyed more benefits. Sound familiar?

The problem for California olive farmers is not an overzealous European Union trying to compete them out of existence.

Instead, they need to focus their energies on convincing an indifferent government that growing olives in California is a better investment for public health and the climate than subsidizing corn in Iowa.

President Joe Biden will sign the next Farm Bill in 2023, which will determine where the subsidies go for the next five years. California olive farmers, start lobbying.

• European Data Journalism Network
• Cato Institute
• Environmental Working Group

The organization said that low rainfall and the scorching heat in recent weeks in the main olive growing regions are making the situation worse, especially in places that have experienced wildfires.

“On the one hand, this climatic contingency helps to curb the spread of the dreaded olive fly, which prefers cooler and more humid habitats,” said Gennaro Sicolo, the president of Italia Olivicola.

“On the other, it risks compromising the production performance of the upcoming harvesting campaign, bringing further concerns also for subsequent ones in relation to production quantity and quality,” he added.

Olive farmers were hopeful during the first part of 2021 as olive groves flowered abundantly. Then, as flowers gave way to fruits, their hopes held firm with promises of a good harvest in the face of challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, rain failed to fall at the right times, and drought persisted for months. The dry conditions were also accompanied by high temperatures and fires, which have diminished hopes of substantial production increases.

Through the years, the olive tree has been known as a hardy crop that can withstand arid climates; however, recent climatic conditions are threatening the trees’ ability to resist dry spells.

“The heat and the strong water stress to which the plants are subjected are risk factors for the development and ripening of the fruit not only in the upcoming campaign but could also have a negative impact on subsequent ones,” Sicolo said.

However, he added that the durability of the olive tree to hot and dry temperatures justify significantly increasing political and economic efforts to support the sector and increase the competitiveness of olive growers.

“The constant request to increase the competitiveness of the supply chain is not consistent with the de facto unavailability of an adequate supply of tools to achieve the desired standards, as in the case of irrigation systems,” Sicolo said.

Currently, Italy’s agriculture faces many challenges, including decreasing rainfall over the years. This is compounded by poor infrastructure for collecting water, low soil moisture and high temperatures that intensify evaporation.

In addition, the gradual desertification of the southern region has not made things better. Overtime time, the problem is also expected to creep northward.

Currently, about 70 percent of Sicily is at risk of desertification, while in the northern parts of the country, the risk of desertification is at 30 to 50 percent.

“Under current conditions, making an appeal to the national government and the regions, farms are not able to receive adequate support for the creation of irrigation systems,” Sicolo concluded. “We can overcome this impossibility by creating ad hoc tools and financial endowments for the water supply in the olive groves.”

• Italia Olivicola

Let’s admit it. One taster’s 84 is another’s 86. A judge might assign higher scores earlier in the tasting than later in the morning. Some might lean toward certain sensory characteristics than others do.

They are renowned experts who form a panel representing the ultimate means to determine extra virgin olive oil quality. But they are human.

A few years ago, I decided to discontinue the Best in Class Award at the NYIOOC – which was bestowed on entries with the highest score in their respective category– due to my conviction that the scores are not sufficiently precise to make that call. One excellent olive oil shouldn’t be declared “better” than another excellent olive oil.

(Some enterprising folks nevertheless felt a need to build a ranking based on how many awards from various competitions a brand garnered in a given year as if that measured anything but the companies’ promotional budgets. But the websites for those rankings get almost no traffic according to metrics tools, revealing that the public doesn’t care more than I do.)

In our contest, scores are used only to determine if an oil earns an award or not – and whether it’s a Silver or Gold, and I’m not crazy about that either.

One entry could get a score of 79.8 to earn a Silver, while another gets 80.1 to win Gold. If it is tasted again a few minutes later, the results might edge the other way around.

Olive oil competitions are imperfect, but they are the most effective way to recognize producers for their heroics and educate the public on quality and value (though plenty of olive oil competitions do neither of those things).

The hidden scores I alone can see don’t mean much on their own, but patterns might emerge when we zoom out to nine years of data we’ve collected in what amounts to the most comprehensive sensory analysis of the world’s olive oils.

Like it or love it.

Among the award-winning oils, which monovarietals made tasters swoon?

When analyzing an entry, NYIOOC judges use the software we developed that prompts them to attribute sub-scores to individual components that make up the overall result.

Things like gustatory and olfactory sensations, balance and harmony, fruitiness, bitterness and pungency contribute to the final number.

When a score reaches the 90s, it’s fair to say a beautiful oil blew the panel away. Scores in the low 70s barely made the cutoff.

Here are the average scores of award-winning oils for the most common cultivars over the last nine years. I also included the average score for award-winning blends:

Of course, we have much more data for Picual, Arbequina and Koroneiki than for Casaliva or Tonda Iblea. Here are only the cultivars I felt had enough results to produce a meaningful average. More than 200 varieties with smaller samplings were omitted.

A correctly crafted oil will consistently achieve better results than one with problematic sensory characteristics, no matter the variety.

It also needs to be said that some cultivars are more limited to regions with less variability in factors like terroir, production methods, and quality standards than, for example, Arbequina, which grows worldwide.

Maybe the graph reveals specific cultivars that, with the right conditions and skilled producers, more consistently show signs of greatness.

Or, perhaps the data suggests some varieties with sensory characteristics that judges have yet to appreciate fully.

Olive Oil Times was just a few years into covering industry news, and the USITC hearings felt like a big deal at the time – a courtroom drama pitting upstart American producers against old-guard importers.

The main protagonist was California Olive Ranch (COR), which had been lobbying for an “even playing field” with European producers who enjoyed, COR and others argued, unfair advantages, including government subsidies. At the same time, they skirted quality standards and labeling rules.

“Once the U.S. olive oil industry is allowed to compete in a market fairly based on price and quality,” COR vice president Adam Englehardt said at the proceedings, “consumers will be able to make informed purchasing decisions based on reliable labels and standards.”

More than 95 percent of the olive oil Americans consume is imported. That trade imbalance, Englehardt argued, “would be expected if the U.S. was incapable of producing olive oil in large quantities.” But COR was experiencing explosive growth at the time – buying land and making top-dollar deals with farmers as they worked their way onto the shelves of American grocery stores.

The hearing came on the heels of a groundbreaking UC Davis report, dubiously financed in part by California producers, that found more imported olive oils to be mislabeled than domestic ones. Then came a book, Extra Virginity by Tom Mueller, that revealed the dark side of the olive oil business.

Mainstream news whipped their readers into a frenzy with sensational headlines decrying olive oil fraud in the Old World, and COR was flying high – waving its California flag when consumer mistrust and Buy American sentiment were at their peak.

Then reality set in.

Another energetic upstart, Boundary Bend, flew in from Australia, set up shop in the Golden State and started paying farmers even more than COR had been. European firms expanded their operations in the Central Valley. And erratic weather, droughts and fires introduced elements of uncertainty into COR’s neat, high-density rows of young Arbequina plants.

I was surprised when we reported in 2012 that COR was negotiating to buy a brand of Italian olive oil, Lucini. I chalked it up to a strategy by the company to broaden the distribution of its homegrown oils to specialty stores where Lucini was presumably stronger.

COR’s CEO at the time was Gregg Kelley, a former Silicon Valley executive who knew how to raise cash – and he did. With new investors to appease and the company’s original Spanish backers, the pressure to keep up the frenetic growth must have led to the next move.

“Our key challenge is supply,” Kelley said in 2015, shortly after the Lucini acquisition. “We have enough land and resources here in California to satisfy the present demand,” he told Olive Oil Times. “You’ve got to remember that we’re operating with a view to the long term.”

COR’s need for continued growth and the realization that California alone couldn’t satisfy much of America’s 350,000-ton thirst for olive oil was what led Kelley’s team to South American and European suppliers  – those dreaded imported oils that COR and its lobbyists spent so much time vilifying a few years earlier.

“We started by putting California on the map with COR,” Kelley told us in 2017, “and now we hope to bring attention to Argentina.” COR may have wanted to raise the profile of Argentinian producers, but not enough for a shoutout on the label.

In 2018, COR unveiled its “Destination Series” in the brand’s recognizable packaging. Kelley must have been channeling his inner Cupertino when he okayed the slogan “Grown Globally, Crafted in California” that appeared in relatively small lettering under the “California” umbrella.

It’s classic “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” Suddenly, COR was a beneficiary of the subsidies they bemoaned. And for all their talk of truthful labels, many accused the brand of sporting one of the most deceptive labels in town.

Italy can relate.

Since forever, Italian olive oils have enjoyed a hard-earned reputation as the best on earth. The trouble has always been that there’s very little to go around. Italians consume more than the country produces. How have they managed to export a half-million tons to distant shores every year?

Like “Crafted in California,” there was “Product of Italy,” the slam-dunk selling point good enough to land Italian-blessed (if not produced) olive oils in every store and nearly every kitchen in the world.

Oils from Spain, Morocco, Greece, and Tunisia were masterfully blended and packaged in bottles and tins with Italian brand names and images, and they were declared Products of Italy. Most of the olive oil that truly was Italian never left The Boot.

Then things started to change. Spain grew tired of basically devoting a third of its country to a profitless commodity and began efforts to fly its own flag, establish brands and add value. And Italian farmers started expressing unease with products claiming to be Italian when they weren’t.

The “Made in Italy” campaign began shaming companies that sought to deceive consumers, and new rules were written to force bottlers to be more transparent about the origins of oils in Europe and beyond.

And that’s what’s happening now in California.

New legislation, AB-535, under debate, would prohibit the use of “California olive oil,” “California olives,” or other similar terms in brand names and packaging not produced from California-grown olives.

“This is in response to the growing devaluation of California extra virgin olive oil by California Olive Ranch’s products that cynically and with false representations carry the name California marqueed across their label to give consumers the impression the olive oil is from California,” Alan Hilburg, the founder of the recently-formed California Coalition for Truth in Olive Oil Labeling, told Olive Oil Times.

But COR sees it differently. “The olive oil labels that AB-535 regulates are not misleading when they conspicuously identify their product’s region of origin,” the company’s new CEO, Michael Fox, told Olive Oil Times. But if COR really wanted to be clear about the origin, why not create a separate brand for them, like its Lucini line?

In their 2019/20 membership agreement, the California Olive Oil Council announced a new rule: “If use of ‘California’ in any phrase such as company name, brand name, or other word or group of words, or images that identify California on the label of any oil sold by the member, then 100 [percent] of the fruit to produce the oil must come solely from the state of California.”

That made COR ineligible for membership in the group.  A spokesperson for the company said they had no intention of rejoining the COOC anyway.

The writing is on the wall. But the real problem here isn’t that people can’t tell if an oil is made in California or elsewhere from the label. The problem is that they care.

Whether an extra virgin olive oil is made in Italy, California, Tunisia or Slovenia shouldn’t be the most important factor in buying decisions. Sure, it’s nice to see the origin without wordplay and deception, but what matters is: Is it any good?

High-quality extra virgin olive oil is crafted in dozens of countries worldwide, and producers of excellence, wherever they are, deserve your business.

The issue is that people don’t know how to determine quality independently, so they rely on cryptic information on labels that follow few rules.

Crafted in California is another entry in a long list of meaningless marketing terms, like Product of Italy and cold-pressed.

In a perfect world, we’d all know how good extra virgin olive oil should taste, and nationalism wouldn’t have much of a role in our buying decisions. Until then, this is how it will go.

The video begins with a sensational hook: “Olive oil from your local grocery store might actually be more harm than good for your body.”

The pitchman is Steven R. Gundry, a Beverly Hills-based cardiac surgeon and author, who claims his olive oil brand contains “more polyphenols than any other olive oil you can find.”

Gundry explains that his oil is sourced from a Moroccan farm where the desert conditions stress the olives, which respond by “producing more hydroxytyrosol than any other olives in the world.”

The advertisement is replete with grand pronouncements that Gundry’s olive oil can “restore your youthful vitality no matter how old you are,” and he repeatedly states that his Polyphenol-Rich Olive Oil has “30 times more polyphenols than any other olive oil.”

The sleight-of-hand that might escape most viewers is that Gundry repeatedly compares his brand to what he calls “traditional” olive oils, not extra virgin olive oils. Refined oils, by definition, contain a fraction of the phenolic content of extra virgin olive oils.

When I asked a Gundry associate how their product would compare with extra virgin olive oils, they replied, “Since we have not tested for third-party extra virgin olive oils, we would not be able to provide a comparison to our product. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.”

“In my medical practices, I always advise my patients to get at least a liter of olive oil a week,” Gundry says in the video, without specifying whether his 8,000-calorie prescription is to consume extra virgin or refined olive oil.

“In order to slim down, support your heart health, super-charge your energy, soothe your joints, and make your skin glow, a liter of olive oil a week is more than worth it,” Gundry proclaims.

One can imagine some of his devotees smothering their Western diet fare with more than 1,000 calories per day of olive oil, hoping to “slim down.”

If Gundry is counseling his patients to consume a liter of refined oil to reach his recommended intake of polyphenols, he disregards extra virgin olive oils entirely. (And didn’t he say, “Olive oil from your local grocery store might actually be more harm than good for your body”?)

Suppose he intends for his patients to take a liter of extra virgin olive oil. In that case, he fails to acknowledge the legions of researchers who have determined that replacing less healthy fats with just two tablespoons daily could bring substantial health benefits.

But as an alternative to downing a liter of some kind of olive oil every week, Gundry wants you to take half a tablespoon per day of his Polyphenol-Rich (and Super-Expensive) Olive Oil, which he says will “ensure you’re getting an entire liter a week’s worth of supercharged polyphenols in just four days.”

Olive Oil Times commissioned two analyses of Gundry’s oil, revealing total phenolic content between 561 and 612 mg/kg (or ppm).

Lab test results always have a degree of uncertainty and can vary depending on the analytical methods employed. The phenolic contents of Gundry’s samples, while relatively high, would be in line with extra virgin olive oils produced in regions around the world from early-harvested olives.

However, an internationally certified taste panel leader found the Gundry sample from the most recent harvest to be lampante — or unfit for human consumption — calling it “one of the worst oils I have ever assessed,” devoid of any positive attributes and exceedingly rancid.

Gundry lists extra virgin olive oil as the sole ingredient on the back of the bottle, but the front indicates “polyphenol-rich olive oil.” It’s therefore unclear, intentionally or not, whether the product is being represented as extra virgin olive oil or as refined olive oil with additives to boost its phenolic composition.

Gundry’s website offers another product, “Chef’s Select,” from the same Moroccan source. The front label indicates extra virgin olive oil, yet it sells for 1/4 the price of Polyphenol-Rich oil. When asked to explain the difference, a Gundry associate replied, “There is no hydroxytyrosol in the Chef’s Select.” This is a surprising statement since any extra virgin olive oil has at least some of the compound.

Again, when Gundry explains that it would take a liter of “regular olive oil” every week to reach his recommended intake of phenols, he seems to be referring to refined oils. Suggesting his olive oil boasts 30 times more polyphenols than any extra virgin olive oil would be false.

Yet that’s the reasoning behind Gundry’s product’s nearly $200-per-liter price tag, when Moroccan extra virgin olive oil trades for around $3.65 on a good day.

Gundry’s label also shows a three-year shelf-life — a rare and unscrupulous (though technically legal) practice that helps a producer sell oil well past its prime.

Joseph R. Profaci, executive director of the North American Olive Oil Association, said members of the group, including major American importers, are prohibited from indicating a three-year shelf-life on packaging “following clear guidance from the International Olive Council.”

And justifying a sky-high price for elevated phenolic levels (even if it were true) has its own problems.

Gundry claims “you can never get too many polyphenols” without citing evidence, contrary to some health experts who say that’s not true.

“You get to a point, and sometimes early, that the high doses [of polyphenols] become hazardous,” Jim Kehrer of the pharmacy department at the University of Alberta in Edmonton said in an interview with CBC News.

“Advertisers have put forth the idea that a little is good, more is better, and a lot is great, but that isn’t really correct,” said Kehrer, who has been researching the effects of free radicals since the 1970s, according to CBC.

Gary Beauchamp, the president emeritus of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, who discovered and named the phenolic compound oleocanthal, said there is no evidence that more is always better when it comes to phenols, adding, “it is reasonable to assume that there is a level of phenolics that would not be healthy to consume.”

Gundry, who is not an accredited dietitian, was criticized long before his foray into the olive oil business.

Robert H. Eckel, a past president of the American Heart Association, wrote in an article for the Center for Nutritional Studies that Gundry’s diet advice contradicts “every dietary recommendation represented by the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association and so on” and that it is not possible to draw conclusions from Gundry’s research due to the absence of control patients in his studies.

“There is no detailed publication of his methods, his subjects, his results, or his intervention,” Eckel wrote, attributing Gundry’s unsubstantiated claims to “either willful negligence or astonishing incompetence.”

“I find it curious that MDs think they can function as nutritionists,” said Mary Flynn, a nutritionist for Brown Medical School. As an MD, his nutrition knowledge would be limited, so I guess he is just one more MD making money off the internet.”

In New Scientist, food writer and chef Anthony Warner called Gundry’s theories on nutrition “laughable” and unsupported by mainstream nutritional science.

Beauchamp, who first identified one of the most celebrated phenolics in extra virgin olive oil, said Gundry’s work seemed “very problematic” when asked about the advertised claims.

Hard-working producers of high-quality extra virgin olive oils worldwide have always struggled to differentiate their brands in a crowded marketplace rife with lesser products.

Undermining their efforts is the long-standing practice by mass merchants who use extra virgin olive oil as a loss-leader, suppressing prices and livelihoods.

Celebrity doctors and chefs routinely stumble through on-air mistruths, like a widely cited (and thoroughly debunked) refrigerator test to determine olive oil quality or a ludicrous see-through test for purity.

And there will always be snake oil salesman throwbacks who capitalize on the vacuum of consumer knowledge about a healthy, affordable and necessary commodity.

“We need to stop the spread of the false choice that olive oil is healthy only if it’s expensive,” Profaci wrote. “Such misinformation pushes consumers who can’t afford to pay $1 or $2 per tablespoon or even more to forgo the potential health benefits of olive oil entirely and opt instead for less healthy cooking oils.  And it is especially objectionable when such misinformation comes from a physician who has sworn to do no harm.”

There are others following Gundry’s lead. A Los Angeles-based osteopath is selling Greek olive oil for $272 per liter, claiming it contains “plant-based superphenols,” whatever that means. (A trademark application for the meaningless term is pending.)

Gundry nevertheless enjoys a considerable following who gush with glowing testimonies of their changed lives on his YouTube channel and product pages.

If only the opportunistic doctor used his megaphone to spread truths instead of adding to the abundant confusion about this vital product and subverting ethical producers’ and marketers’ efforts to educate the deserving public.

Curtis Cord is the editor-in-chief of Olive Oil Times.

What readers are saying

Readers engaged deeply with the Gundry article, producing a mix of praise, critique, and practical feedback. About a quarter of commenters thanked the author for shedding light on olive oil’s role in health, with some noting the article confirmed their suspicions or inspired them to try new products. Others challenged Gundry’s credentials—labeling him a “pseudo-doctor” or blaming “hype”—and urged him (and fellow readers) to consult original scientific sources before drawing conclusions. Alongside these thematic discussions, personal anecdotes surfaced: several readers described subscription headaches—being charged despite cancelling—and disappointment with product quality. Questions about the specific benefits of extra-virgin olive oil and how best to integrate it into one’s diet also appeared, reflecting genuine curiosity. Despite the variety of languages and viewpoints, the conversation coalesced around a few key points—appreciation for practical advice, demand for scientific rigor, and real-world experiences with olive oil brands, highlighting the community’s balanced mix of enthusiasm and healthy skepticism.

Especially after the onset of the industrial revolution, the olive tree came to be thought of as an olive-producing machine, whereby the more resources we put into it, the more it would produce.

But this approach leads to a number of problems because the deep genetics of the tree always have the last word. 

The olive tree is not a static machine, it is a living entity that has evolved over thousands of years in the Mediterranean climate where there are extreme variations in day-to-day and year-to-year conditions.

This variability translates into varying water and nutrient availability, and the olive tree has developed physiological means for dealing with these changing conditions. There are strong day-by-day responses in the olive tree physiology, reminiscent of how a brain reacts through feelings such as fear, fatigue, or motivation.

By considering the tree in the not-so-metaphorical sense of these sensations, better growing practices become clear and we can improve the health of our tree, the quality of the oil it produces, and pave the way to a more stable yearly production.

Heavy crops and tree fear

From a mechanistic view of the olive tree, a heavy crop is always the goal. However, for an olive tree, a heavy crop means that it will have to expend a huge amount of energy to its fruits: olives are rich in very “expensive” physiological substances (oil) and mineral nutrients. So in a harsh climate, a great expense of energy can be dangerous, even to the point that it can put the survival of the tree itself at risk.

If the olive tree senses low water and nutrient availability, as a self-defense strategy it will severely impair the number of fruits it sets. Could we call this fear?

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of irrigation

According to a mechanistic concept of olive tree production, olive trees should be irrigated mainly in summer, after the fruit has been set because it is thought that the olive tree will need more water due to high temperatures and dryer soil. This is a mistake and shows that we have not comprehended the physiological process of the tree’s reproductive system.

After deploying nutrients and energy to the fruits set in spring the olive tree needs a period of rest in summer. If the tree is excessively irrigated in summer, this rest period is not registered by the tree and it “thinks” it has to jump into the production stage too soon and it hasn’t had time to recuperate an adequate level of nutrients. Therefore, as it notes a lack of nutrients it will be afraid to overproduce and risk the dangers of nutrient depletion. So the returning crop is negatively affected. 

On the contrary, when we consider the tree from a biological perspective, and understand its physiological nature, we take into account the cycles and phases of tree, and it becomes clear that there is an optimum moment for supporting the tree with water and nutrients.

The key moment in this cycle is in late spring (especially if it has been a dry spring) because this is the moment when the tree has to decide on how many fruits to set. So irrigating just before the fruits are set is the strategy that will most positively influence production. And this key moment is often missed. The fundamental purpose for this is to keep the tree from feeling afraid of the future so that it will set an appropriate number of fruits which, of course, translates into a good crop. 

Fatigue, pruning and fertilizing

In the year after a heavy crop (the off year), a tree’s nutrient reserve will likely be low because the nutrients went into the fruits. The buds take note of the late winter nutritional status and if the nutrient levels are low, the buds will develop into leaves, not fruits, and the return harvest will be low or even null. Could we call this fatigue?

From a mechanistic point of view, where the goal is always to reach the highest possible level of production, the olive tree should not be heavily pruned before an on-year in the mistaken opinion of ensuring a good harvest. Likewise, it is common to over-fertilize before the tree sets the fruit, which will make the tree set more fruits than it can reasonably handle. These practices ultimately exacerbate the fatigue a tree will experience. 

On the other hand, agronomical practices that take into account the tree’s biological systems see that heavy on-year pruning, and minimal late spring and early summer fertilization (when the olive tree is about to set the fruit), accompanied by high fertilization in late summer and fall (when the olives increase in weight) help the tree make it to the following spring in very good condition for developing a new harvest.

Sometimes it is better to decrease the crop capacity in the short term to obtain an optimal crop over the longer term. In other words, rather than having a heavy crop followed by an off crop, it is better to have a consistent year-to-year medium crop which ultimately produces overall higher production.

Olive tree motivation 

In an off-year (a low-crop year), the olive tree has very low fruit demand for nutrients and energy, and so it is able to develop long shoots and build up good levels of nutrients and hormones. These hormones induce most of the buds on the tree to develop into flowers (rather than leaves) and, supported by the robust nutritional reserve, many of these flowers will set fruit the next year (the on-year). Might we call this motivation?

The desire to reproduce

The olive tree, like any living being, wants to reproduce. For an olive tree, reproduction means producing olives, and olives mean crop. Olive tree management must go in the direction of having a non-stressed (non-fatigued, non-scared) tree instead of over-supplying additional resources. A non-stressed, i.e. happy, olive tree can produce quite stable yearly crops. 

By understanding the deep physiology and genetics of the tree, growers can adjust their yearly and intra-year management strategies. This will ultimately improve the homogeneity of inter-year crops, decrease costs in fertilizer and irrigation, create healthier trees, increase resistance to disease and pests, produce higher quality oil, higher levels of phenols, and ultimately increase revenue.

Rafael Navarro is an olive grove management consultant for Selección de Olivares de Sierra. Susan Hoover is the manager of The Rain In Spain.

Since, oh, the beginning of time, any olive oil that ever-so-briefly may have brushed the blessed shores of Italy were emblazoned with the mythical Made in Italy distinction and set forth unto the world to command much higher prices than oils that admitted where they were really from.

The public’s demand for transparency and authentic products and efforts by ethical producers led to national campaigns that sought to restore the “Made in Italy” brand and reserve its exclusive use for oils that were, well, made in Italy.

In fact, it was the public shaming of those old shenanigans and other unseemly practices that helped give rise to the value of homegrown oils from places like Australia, South Africa, Argentina and California.

Now, in a move straight out of the old Italian playbook, the largest American olive oil producer has announced a new “Crafted in California” range of imported oil blends.

California Olive Ranch (COR) explains on its website:

“It’s no secret that farming is a difficult business and growing olives is not without its challenges. This year, we, along with farmers of all kinds of crops throughout California, were hit with a freeze during our bloom season. This drastically reduced the size of our crop, compromising our ability to make good on our promise of providing Americans with high-quality extra virgin olive oil at a reasonable price.”

In other words, California’s leading olive oil company can’t feed its thriving sales channels with a limited supply of California fruit that’s commanding ever-higher prices.

The reality of the matter, of course, is that American consumers who have been led by campaigns fueled by COR and others to devalue imported oils will not take the time to check the origins of the new “Destinations” range.

See Also: California’s Olive Oil Time Warp

The front label points out that the product is “Grown Globally, Crafted in California” which is reminiscent of the “Designed by Apple in California” that billions of us have seen on the devices in our hands (COR’s CEO, Gregg Kelley, is a silicon-valley veteran). The company predictably omits “imported” — the buzzword of the public-relations bashing COR helped finance.

“In the recent past, we saw country codes in small print on the back label,” Kelley told Olive Oil Times when asked about the new range. “California Olive Ranch wants to change that, and we’re proudly sharing the carefully selected global partners who grow, harvest and mill with the same passion and focus on quality as we do.”

But it would be interesting to ask ten people who purchased a bottle from the new range, “Did you know the oil you just bought is from Argentina, Portugal and Spain?”

More likely, just as the iconic Italian scenes that adorn the bottles of oils from Tunisia, Spain, Morocco and Greece, COR’s familiar rancher logo with the all-caps CALIFORNIA will be all that is needed to close the deal.

Great olive oil comes from California, Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Argentina and dozens of other countries in the world. Blurring the nationalistic lines and focusing instead on quality can be constructive. But COR and its domestic partners came into this fight swinging, through coordinated efforts to debase the opaque practices of their imported rivals, including one practice it now seems to have adopted.

After a particularly bad season, COR is hoping to sell a lot of imported olive oil under its all-caps “California” heading and American consumers, trained by now to reach for local products, likely won’t notice a thing.

“We are currently facing a crop disaster that will impact every California olive oil producer across the board,” Kelley said. “Our mission is to remain honest and transparent with American consumers on the state of the California crop.”

Which is to say, get used to imported oils flying the California flag.

Modern life leaves dwindling time for cooking while culinary shortcuts in the Instant-Pot era offer 30-minute meals in ever fewer steps. Flavored oils provide a fat and seasoning in one swoop.

I’ve never been a fan, even going on record with a Washington Post writer back in 2013 with “harsh words for the idea” of flavoring and infusing olive oils with herbs, fruit, smoke or anything else. But there’s a special place in the wrong column in my view for bottling flavored concoctions and calling it ‘extra virgin’ on the label.

By definition, extra virgin olive oil, or even plain olive oil, can contain no additives. Once you add another ingredient, it falls into a category of an oil-based condiment and should not include “olive oil” on the front of the package at all.

Extra virgin olive oil is the only food that needs to be tasted by a human to verify its classification. Trained tasters look for subtle signs of defects that would disqualify the extra virgin status. Any additive makes this verification process impossible.

It’s not just my peeve. The International Olive Council (IOC), the U.N.-sanctioned intergovernmental organization whose standards are routinely ignored around the world, has tried to get its 15 member countries to abide by its rules that forbid calling anything with an additive ‘olive oil,’ no less ‘extra virgin.’

The IOC’s executive director, Abdellatif Ghedira, told Olive Oil Times, “flavored oils cannot be considered olive oils” and can’t be labeled as such under IOC rules.

That hasn’t stopped some of the biggest brands within IOC-member countries from doing so. “Extra virgin” on the label commands a higher price leading to greater sales. Whether or not the oil inside deserves the valuable declaration has long been conveniently overlooked by marketers.

“To guarantee greater transparency for consumers in markets around the world, it is important to respect standards and the bodies that regulate them in every country,” Ghedira added in a wishful refrain.

The problem comes down to this: When you buy chocolate milk, you can be reasonably confident it’s milk flavored with chocolate — and if you wanted to, you could get a chemistry lab to prove it. Extra virgin olive oil is a product viewed with a well-founded degree of suspicion and a long history of frauds. Add any ingredient to the mix and an independent verification becomes impossible.

From a producer’s perspective, if you’re going to add chili, Sriracha, smoke or Meyer lemons to the mix, why use extra virgin olive oil when it’s costlier to produce and defects in a lower grade would be effectively concealed by the flavoring anyway?

The reason, of course, is that extra virgin sells — whether it’s on the front of a bag of potato chips, a jar of mayonnaise, or a blend with another oil entirely.

Nancy Harmon Jenkins, an olive oil producer in Italy and author of the New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook was eager to concur. “I know there are producers I admire who make flavored oil,” she told me, “but the pure, fresh taste of high-quality olive oil is so unique that I have to ask — why bother adding to it? Would you add raspberry flavor to a high-end champagne?”

Harmon Jenkins recommends adding ingredients independently to maintain the integrity of their individual qualities. “If you want to add a little lemon or garlic or basil to the oil at the moment you’re serving it, that’s the best way. What happens with flavored oil is the same thing that happens with flavored coffee — the flavors have no sense of freshness to them at all, just old and tired Herbes de Provence added to old, tired oil.”

(A few producers who market flavored oils labeled extra virgin were asked to provide their perspectives but declined to comment.)

Slowly but surely, prompted by an endless stream of new discoveries of the health benefits attributed to extra virgin olive oil and the rise of prominent chefs who took the time to explore its culinary possibilities, consumers are finally becoming more educated on what “extra virgin” means and why it deserves the higher price tag.

Flavored oils labeled as extra virgin are the low-hanging fruit. It’s a way to move olive oil through retail by abandoning the educational track the collective industry has been following and luring buyers with Sriracha and smoke — while opening the door to even more misinformation and deceit.

Yet even with the health benefits of olive oil firmly established and with more high-quality olive oils available to us now than ever before, humans choose less-healthy seed oils 97 percent of the time.

Olive oil consumption hasn’t budged in 14 years. This according to the International Olive Council (IOC) whose job is to promote its consumption worldwide. Even with nearly 1.2 billion more mouths to feed, we’re eating less olive oil now than we did in 2003 — when they still made Volkswagen Beetles.

In 2003, the worldwide per capita annual consumption of olive oil was 452 ml. Today, it’s around 391 ml. That doesn’t say much for the size of our brains.

And we can’t blame this one on social media. In fact, Instagram is ablaze with food porn featuring streaks of green gold which we flip through as we reach for that big yellow bottle of Canola or corn oil. (By ‘we’ I mean you.)

Celebrity chefs have been out-hyperbolizing each other into a frenzy — one even coined the term ‘EVOO’ (then promptly proved she knew almost nothing about it).

And yet here we all are, eating on average about 2/10 of a teaspoon a day of olive oil (even with the help of our Greek friends). We eat at least 30 times as much rapeseed oil.

The IOC declined a request for comments on the return of olive oil consumption to Nokia-phone-era levels. The intergovernmental organization has been strapped for cash ever since the European Commission, under pressure from the seed oil lobby, pulled much of the IOC’s funding, according to Fausto Luchetti who ran the IOC from 1987 until 2002.

Luchetti, who was recently cleared, after 15 years, of charges of financial improprieties stemming from his tenure in Madrid, led the IOC during its heyday when olive oil consumption nearly doubled. It’s been flat ever since.

“When I took office in 1987, olive oil consumption in the U.S. reached 25,000 tons, half of which were esterified oils,” Luchetti told Olive Oil Times. “I realized that the first thing we had to do was to improve quality. If we wanted consumption to increase, we needed a product that really corresponded to what we said about extra virgin olive oil with its nutritional properties, organoleptic and biological values, and so on.”

“Until the mid-80s the typical American consumer of olive oil was still the immigrant from the Mediterranean area, especially Italian, who did not pay attention to quality and consumed a product that had very little to do with extra virgin olive oil,” Luchetti added. “For years, consumption was subject to stagnation, around 15–20,000 tons, because consumers were those poor people unable to afford high costs for fats in their diet.”

Luchetti set out to improve product quality while the group engaged researchers. “We created a network of researchers who studied the properties of extra virgin olive oil and led to results which have been widely accepted.”

“Basically, since the mid-80s until the early 1990s, we tried to sensitize potential consumers, especially Americans, through the dissemination of scientific knowledge,” Luchetti recalled. “We finally started to reap the rewards of our work with the International Conference on the Mediterranean Diet at the Harvard School of Public Health, in 1993, which definitively popularized the properties of extra virgin olive oil.”

“Today, the IOC no longer does scientific research, and, in this sense, I would like to stress the Organization’s attitude that (promoting scientific research) is no longer necessary since (they believe) what has already been done was sufficient,” Luchetti said.

The IOC might be right about that. Studies on the health benefits of extra virgin olive oil — and the Mediterranean diet — have piled on top of one another since Luchetti’s tenure at the Council, with or without the group’s funding.

It might be right to assume that the healthfulness of extra virgin olive oil is common knowledge by now. Unfortunately, just as pervasive is the confusion. Consumers are suspicious of olive oil quality and most are unable to determine whether the oil they are buying is authentic or not.

People know extra virgin olive oil is healthy. They also watched the 60 Minutes segment on Mafia’s role in Italian agribusiness with images of police trained in olive oil tasting. They read the now infamous New York Times infographic — the one that no writer would admit to penning — that contained so many inaccuracies, the Times redacted much of it, albeit long after the damage had been done.

And they heard about the bombshell UC Davis study, financed by California olive oil producers, that called out imported olive oils as frauds (though some domestic ones were too), issuing a 2010 report that has been twisted, distorted and overblown in sensational media coverage ever since.

In the oil aisle, people are hearing in one ear how healthy the EVOO is, while the other ear rings with mistrust and suspicion: Leave the olive oil, take the Canola.

“I believe we are seeing the effect of negative stories about olive oil quality and reliability,” said Joseph R. Profaci, the executive director of the North American Olive Oil Association.

“The beginning of the sharp decline in consumption growth corresponds with the release of the UC Davis reports and has continued to today as those reports and others have been regurgitated ad nauseam — usually by misinterpretation, intentional or otherwise — in the form of clickbait and misleading promotional stories,” Profaci said. “The negative news is creating a barrier to getting new users into the category.”

Those new users, however, wouldn’t be as susceptible to the misinformation if they were empowered to decide for themselves if an olive oil is as good as it should be. The basic problem is that most don’t know how a good extra virgin olive oil should taste in the first place.

In fact, there are more high-quality olive oils available to us now than at any time in history. High-quality extra virgin olive oil should have aromas of fresh fruit; it should be bitter on the sides of the tongue; it should sting in the throat.

Here are 521 brands, from 22 countries. They are this year’s award winners at the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition. Find a few, buy them and learn how great an extra virgin olive oil can be. Then compare it to the oil you were using and tell some friends. And feel your brain getting bigger.

That might be surprising coming from someone who organizes the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition. I’ll explain.

Some olive oil guides rank oils with a score, taking their cues from wine guides and their score-happy indices.

The olive oil with the highest score — say, one that earns a score of 99 — is said to be the “best olive oil in the world,” or “EVOO of the year.”

Over the years managing the NYIOOC, if one thing was clear to me, it was this: one judge’s 99 was another judge’s 95. One panel’s 92 was another panel’s 96.

They are all great olive oils. But the difference between a ‘blow-your-mind’ EVOO and a ‘freakishly good’ EVOO is an abstract notion that dwells in the depths of an individual taster’s preferences and there is too little consensus among judges and panels on oils they rank at the highest levels to proclaim that the 98 is really ‘better’ than the one that scored 97 or 96.

Crafting a high-quality olive oil is an arduous task. Every producer who manages to do so deserves to be recognized without unjustified hierarchies.

Each year I see the scores of the world’s largest olive oil competition, and each year I decline to make them public because I know that an oil that achieved a score of 82 deserves the same recognition as one that scored an 88.

I know that the same panel can taste an oil first thing in the morning and give it a score of 78 and then give the same oil a score of 74 later in the day.

So here’s the thing: There are good olive oils and great olive oils. And even the line between ‘good’ and ‘great’ can be fuzzy.

In New York, we average the judges’ scores and bestow a Gold Award to those with scores of 80 or higher — a Silver Award for those between 65 and 79.99; no award for the 448 brands in the 2017 NYIOOC that scored below 65.

Does a producer who managed to craft an oil with a score of 79.75 (Silver) deserve as much recognition as one who earned a score of 80.15 (Gold)? Absolutely. And that is why we celebrate and publicize every award winner with the same appreciation. These are great oils. The one that would be best to pour over your brussels sprouts is your call.

Likewise, I have never felt entirely comfortable with our Best in Class selection, which pits the highest-scoring oils from each category against each other in a simple vote by the full panel of judges.

For example, we will line up every Northern Hemisphere organic monovarietal that scored over 95. The judges will taste them all at their own pace and cast a vote for the one they think is the best among them.

Even here, there can be considerable disagreement. And did an oil that scored a 93 deserve to be in the running? Yes, and it might have won. Don’t be surprised if I eventually do away with the Best in Class at NYIOOC.

Some websites even scan the world’s olive oil competitions to see which brands won the most awards to declare the “World’s Best Olive Oil.”

The premise is that the producer who won awards at the most competitions is necessarily ‘better’ than the producer who entered just one competition and earned a Best in Class. A more accurate name for the brand singled out on these websites would be ‘World’s Winningest Olive Oil.’

We need truth and clarity in the olive oil category, not confusion. “World’s Best Olive Oil” misleads people into thinking you can determine for everyone that one producer’s exceptional olive oil is better than another producer’s excellent olive oil.

I will accept an expert’s view that an olive oil is great. I will not accept a declaration that it is the best.

In New York, we call every oil that wins an award “among the best in the world.”

“One of the world’s best,” okay.

“The world’s best?” In my book, that’s just more misinformation.

Seventy-five percent of the nearly 1,400 respondents said they were involved in various capacities in the food business, while 23 percent said they were consumers and enthusiasts.

Olive Oil Times invited 5,000 ‘loyal readers’ among its newsletter subscribers to complete the brief survey.

“Since starting down this road in 2010, we never really asked readers to share their opinions about our coverage of this important topic,” said Curtis Cord, the publisher of Olive Oil Times. “As we prepare for our fourth redesign, we thought it was a great time to ask readers to tell us what they like, and don’t like about the information we present and how it is presented, and the feedback has been immensely helpful.”

The interactive online survey also revealed:

Sixty-five percent of respondents said they refer to the online publication at least once a week.

Forty-seven percent of loyal readers said they regularly access OOT on a mobile device, which is 10 percent lower than the site’s overall mobile readership, reflecting the likelihood that regular readers are more often accessing the site from work.

Eighty-eight percent gave the website’s overall design a score of 8 or higher on a scale of 0 to 10.

Seventy-eight percent rated the number of articles Olive Oil Times publishes “about right.” 12 percent wanted more articles, 10 percent said they’d prefer less.

Ninety-one percent (1,270 respondents) gave a score of 8 or higher, when asked to rate the “trustworthiness and credibility of the information in Olive Oil Times” on a scale of zero to ten, which Cord said he viewed as the single most important response of the survey. “I had hoped by this time we had established trust in our readers as an impartial source of information, and I am extremely pleased with that feedback in particular,” he said.

Sixty-one percent of respondents said they would like to see more articles on “farming and production,” which ranked the highest among the categories readers called for more coverage on.

More than one-third said they would like to see less coverage of cooking and recipes, but one-third wanted more.

Seventeen percent said they’d like to see more opinion articles, while 28 percent said they’d like to see less.

Forty-two percent said they wanted to see more articles on health and diet, while 15 percent would prefer fewer stories on those topics.

Out of five stars, when asked to rate the “rate the information value of Olive Oil Times,” the average response was 4.31 stars.

Readers were invited to provide suggestions on the website’s design, the scope of editorial coverage and anything else they wanted to say to the editorial team.

“I work in a retail olive oil shop and your publication has been very useful in making me more informed and knowledgeable,” said a respondent in North America.

“I’d love to see more coverage of small producers and farms,” a European reader suggested.

A reader from Asia wrote, “I would be happy to read more about regions like Jordan, Croatia, Israel etc., opinions, columns, points of view of chefs, distributors and other people on the ‘other side’ of the industry — the customers.”

A reader from Europe agreed: “I would like to see more articles about European, North African and other Mediterranean basin olive oils.”

Thirty-eight percent of respondents said they lived in North America, 36 percent live in Europe, 6 percent live in Asia, and 6 percent live in Australia. South Americans and South Africans each accounted for 3 percent of respondents.

Six percent of readers said they use their web browser to translate OOT into their preferred language, but there were few calls for multilingual versions of the portal.

As far as improvements to the website’s design and organization, the most common responses related to improving navigation and providing easier access to archived articles.

There were readers who said they saw too much coverage of the North American market, while others viewed the publication as being overly “Eurocentric.”

Some respondents criticized what they saw as a narrow focus on high-quality olive oils: “Become the arbiter of ALL oils, not just EVOOs,” a North American reader suggested, while another reader urged, “you should devote more space to calling out frauds.”

There were calls for greater advocacy on several fronts, such as for the protection of endangered millennial trees, and helping to promote the products of developing countries.

“Please cover the old trees and make an effort to protect them,” one reader from Europe urged. “The olive oil from these trees is amazing and yet no one knows about them and theextra virgin olive oil industry wants to get rid of them.”

“You need to concentrate more on areas of growth in the world as opposed to traditional olive growers. Link farmers in these countries with investors,” another reader from Europe suggested.

“Give more importance and assistance to small producers,” said a reader from Europe. “They are producing the best olive oil without mechanisms to promote it.”

Such a divergence of views among an international readership was to be expected, Cord said, and every response would be put to good use as his development team prepares for the fourth major design overhaul in seven years. And there were respondents who recognized the balance required of a publication that covered an industry active on six continents.

“I appreciate that there is a general source of information about the olive oil industry that comes from a variety of sources from around the world,” a reader from North America wrote. “The variety of topics is great, and is appealing to a broad audience. Keep up the good work!”

Thank you, we will certainly try.

In the five years since the report was published, that 69 percent figure, based on a small sampling in a study backed by California producers would circle the globe, cited by countless media outlets and twisted into falsehoods, most notably by the New York Times in its infamous infographic, that had no author and was later recanted.
See Also: NYT Infographic Timeline
As if 69 percent has lost its shock value in five short years, and as if to feed the ever-hungry needs of sensational journalism, we’re suddenly hearing a lot about 80 percent. Eighty percent is the new 69 percent when you really want to drill home how much olive oil is “fake” in the world.

Just yesterday, the North American Olive Oil Association sued TV’s ‘Dr. Oz’ for declaring on his program that 80 percent of extra virgin olive oils are fake, among other unsubstantiated statements made on his show.

How did we get here?

The Olive Oil Scam: If 80% Is Fake, Why Do You Keep Buying It? https://t.co/raEstcQvCI

— Carl Stevens (@CarlStevens007) November 17, 2016

Did you know that up to 80% of olive oil in the supermarket is fake? Many of these fraudulent products are… https://t.co/Bnycf95HJX

— Christie Stoll (@christiestoll) August 9, 2016

Is Your Olive Oil Fake? 80% most likely is. https://t.co/PklAjB4zYL via @DrOz #oliveoil

— Texas Angel Oil (@texasangeloil) May 18, 2016

Food & Counterfeit: 80% of Olive Oil Sold in the US is Fake https://t.co/PsmPdr9ei4 pic.twitter.com/6ikUfmDMPf

— AlpVision (@AlpVision) May 17, 2016

This is alarming, if true: 80% of olive oil in U.S. may be fake https://t.co/8PhwId5hD7

— Humayun Chaudhry (@FedMed1) May 14, 2016

While it’s easy to overstate how much olive oil is substandard, it is difficult to overstate the damage throwing around numbers like this do to an industry, including the thousands of producers committed to quality.

In case you’re curious where the 80 percent came from, the first known sighting of the “4 out of 5” shoot from the hip was by Tom Mueller, the investigative journalist and “Extra Virginity” author who appeared on ‘60 Minutes’ last January.

That’s when Mueller told CBS News correspondent Bill Whittaker “up around 75 to 80 percent, easily” of extra virgin olive oils sold in the United States are “fraudulent.” Mueller later told me that when you factor in foodservice channels, he was confident in the figure. But no matter. Eighty percent was off and running.

Like the 140-character rants by our president-elect that managed to stick with slightly less than half of Americans, the “eighty percent fraudulent” meme is also causing people to turn their backs on a good thing in anger, with little patience for the finer points.

What are those finer points?

• There’s no data to support 80 percent of extra virgin olive oils sold in the U.S. are substandard, nevermind “fake” or “fraudulent.”
• Substandard olive oils (not as sexy as “fake,” but a much more accurate depiction) are likely simply “virgin” instead of “extra virgin,” which is still a healthier choice than other cooking oils and probably worth the $9 you paid anyway.
• The best way to know if your olive oil is really extra virgin is to learn how it should taste, and taste it for yourself. It’s not that hard.

Mislabeled olive oil is a problem that has been around a long time, and when we choose to buy extra virgin olive oil we deserve to get what we pay for. But never have there been as many efforts as there are now to combat unethical practices in olive oil producing regions around the world and the overall quality of olive oils available to us all is on a steep upward trend.

But change didn’t have to come with such collateral damage and we ought to stop throwing big numbers around with little evidence to support them.

During the interview, Rafael Marchetti, producer of olive oil for his family’s company, Tecnoplanta that offers turnkey investment opportunities in Brazil’s olive oil sector, reiterated that the current political and economic crises plaguing the country has stymied growth in his once burgeoning business.

This came as little surprise to me. Over the past six to eight months it has become apparent, as I stroll the streets of northeastern Brazil, that more informal street vendors are selling their goods. To help supplement an already insufficient minimum wage (R$880 per month, or roughly $263 at the current exchange rate) people sell corn, popcorn, candy, French fries, and other random food items and tidbits to make ends meet. Olive oil? This condiment and cooking oil doesn’t make the best street hustle in tough times.

Curtis Cord, the publisher of Olive Oil Times, began interviewing Marchetti with a smooth “So, just to break the ice, how do you like President Trump?” Not a conventional way to open a podcast discussion concerning extra virgin olive oil production in Brazil. However, the political crisis in Brazil is not radically dissimilar to what transpired in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and has much to do with the one-year decline in olive oil sales in the country.

So how can the election of Donald Trump reveal some of Brazil’s political woes at present? Foremost, Trump’s victory per the electoral college (no popular vote needed) is reminiscent of the ouster of Dilma Rousseff, the first female president of Brazil.

Despite Brazil’s public prosecutor finding her innocent of any crime, Rousseff, who had been democratically re-elected in 2014, was removed from office in August. This political drama was partially motivated by the infamous Car Wash investigations which have rocked almost every aspect of Brazilian politics in the past few years. Insinuations swirled rampantly about Rousseff’s involvement in either one crime or another. However, in the end, only her most devoted political foes, many of whom remain in office, were ever formally implicated or charged with actual crimes by authorities.

BBC Brasil recently published an article titled Corrida presidencial 2018 pode ter Trump brasileiro (Brazil’s 2018 presidential race may see a Brazilian Trump). My response was that they already have a Trump president with this newly installed government. The political and economic crises have only worsened since Rousseff’s removal. Replacing her was vice-president, Michel Temer. His robust austerity proposal (MEC 241) aims to put a 20-year freeze on all public expenditures as well as alter the public education curriculum (one of the changes includes a rule that no political debates would be allowed in secondary school).

Protesting Temer’s proposals, secondary school students have occupied hundreds, if not thousands, of schools nationwide, labor unions and social organizations have taken their demands to the streets, and, as I write, a national strike is being organized for the 25th of November.

As Marchetti alluded to during his interview, the one-year drop in locally produced olive oil sales is directly related to the economic and political crises that have intensified over the past year. Data supporting that correlation are few and far between. Nonetheless, while unemployment in Brazil is up to 11.6 percent, making it the seventh-largest unemployed market in a survey of 51 countries, food prices such as black beans, Carioca beans, rice, potatoes, onions, garlic, and, of course, olive oil, have all risen. Since the start of 2016, Carioca beans, a staple food source, one of the most consumed type of beans in Brazil, has risen 54 percent.

Inevitably, gourmet extra virgin olive oil producers like Marchetti find themselves in a catch-22. Whereas their niche food industry is welcomed and needed in Brazil, the political and economic whirlwind sweeping the country doesn’t seem like it will end anytime soon.

Despite all, they’re pressing forward, just like the stone wheels used to press olives in the good old days. But now, much of their work involves educating the public about the quality and freshness of locally produced olive oil. Not only does it reduce our carbon footprint, it can also help to ignite a stagnate economy.

• TecnoPlanta


• Alimenta??o Fora do Lar


• The Nation

My investigation has continued and has gone beyond the events I reported in previous articles. I have come face to face with the conflicting interests, political interventions, professional jealousies, and possible scientific misconduct and fraud within the EU scientific community.

When I began this journey, I assumed that scientists were seekers of truth and innovation. At least that was my experience up until then. In modern day Greece however some academics who are well connected by family relations or by political affiliations receive preferential treatment even when their work is substandard or even downright fraudulent. There is a great deal of money given to a small number of well-connected academics in Greece. Recently it was reported that millions of euros in EU grants for research were fraudulently obtained. The names of the reserchers involved have not been published.

Personal academic rivalries were revealed when a letter was sent to the previous president of the Greek Parliament by three prominent scientists; Dimitrios Boskou, Maria Tsimidou and Alexios-Leandros Skaltsounis on June 18, 2014. They objected to the question that was posed to Minister of Agriculture Athanasios Tsaftaris last year by a few members of parliament relating to the EU health claim labeling regulation 432/2012.

Here is an excerpt:

“To our surprise, we discovered that an international website (oliveoiltimes.com) reported that a group of Greek elected officials submitted a question in Parliament, which is associated with the scientific analysis (NMR) to detect two specific substances (oleocanthal and oleacein) in virgin olive oil and asks the competent authorities — namely EFET (Hellenic National Food Safety) and the Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food — to endorse a scientific analysis (NMR) in order to show the superiority of certain oils produced in Greece. Such actions we think are extremely misguided, scientifically vague, creating great confusion among producers and many questions about their motivation.”

What motivated these three scientists to write a letter questioning the motivations of elected officials took a while to figure out. However, what motivated the elected officials is more obvious.

The question posed by a group of parliamentarians acting on behalf of olive growers was asking for clarification on why EFET refused to implement the regulation Tsaftaris himself had so enthusiastically embraced earlier. The NMR would be the perfect instrument to use for this purpose. But it needed a political decision and support in order for the NMR to be more accessible.

The global scientific community has enthusiastically embraced the NMR method for accurately measuring individual phenolic compounds but in Greece it has been ignored. Why? Because there is a great deal of EU funding at stake. The EU has been generously funding Greek scientists to find new methods to measure phenolic compounds in olive oil for the purpose of implementing the EU labeling regulation 432/2012, but the NMR was already invented without any research funding from the EU.

The following health claim is allowed on labels: Olive oil polyphenols contribute to the protection of blood lipids from oxidative stress. The claim may be used only for olive oil which contains at least 5 mg of hydroxytyrosol and its derivatives (e.g. oleuropein complex and tyrosol) per 20 g of olive oil. In order to bear the claim information shall be provided to the consumer that the beneficial effect is obtained with a daily intake of 20 gm of olive oil.

Contrary to the above health claim allowed by the EU, the three scientists who wrote the letter (Boskou, Tsimidou and Skaltsounis) claimed that it was not possible to quantify the health benefits of individual phenolic compounds in olive oil:

“The issue raised in the Greek Parliament is scientifically complex and what is the most efficient, reliable and economical method of analysis or which substances should be identified, is something that should be answered by the scientific community rather than answered by members of Parliament. Olive oil is very rich in bioactive components, a class which are chemically related biophenols with hydroxytyrosol and tyrosol and it is not possible to quantify the contribution of each individual compound in the overall beneficial effect on health.”

But the EU had already quantified the health benefits of hydroxytyrosol and its derivatives found in olive oil. This was the basis of the health claim allowed on the label of high polyphenol EVOOs that qualify. In fact Tsaftaris was asked because he had authority over EFET amid complaints that EFET was not allowing the EU health claim regulation to be implemented.

What makes this even more strange is the three scientists who signed this letter of protest are well respected in the field of olive oil research. This made me very curious. So I looked into their intertwined relationships. Tsaftaris was also a professor at Aristotelian University in Thessaloniki where Boskou and Tsimidou are headquartered. Could they have influenced EFET to flip flop on implementing the regulation?

I was surprised to see Skaltsounis name on the letter. Skaltsounis is the head of the department of Pharmacognosy at the University of Athens where Prokopios Magiatis discovered the NMR method of accurately measuring individual phenolic compounds in olive oil. Why would he not want the NMR to be used to measure hydroxytyrosol and its derivatives in olive oil in order to comply with the regulation? And why were these three scientists getting the president of the Greek Parliament involved, who has no authority or knowledge on such matters? Did they believe they had that much political power?

My investigation yielded a number of irregularities and vicious rivalries hiding behind this particular letter. But first a recap of events that led up to it and some additional background.

After the initial question Tsaftaris consulted with EFET and the answer was: “oleocanthal and oleacein cannot be measured and included in order to qualify for the health claim because they are not specifically mentioned in the regulation.” Upon hearing what I thought to be a misguided and unscientific decision, I immediately called and wrote a letter to the EU and asked for clarification on what specific derivatives of hydroxytyrosol should be measured in order to qualify for the health claim. I also wrote to EFET explaining the regulation and making a case for the inclusion of oleocanthal and oleacein. The regulation referred to derivatives of hydroxytyrosol such as, tyrosol etc. An chemist with knowledge of olive oil chemistry would know what other derivatives they were referring to. Even if they did not know, all they had to do is google it like I did.

Consequently EFET reversed their decision and confirmed that indeed oleocanthal and oleacein should be measured in order to qualify for the health claim. Upon hearing this I immediately sent a letter to the EU informing them that EFET had accepted oleocanthal and oleacein and therefore their opinion was no longer needed. I also added: “my understanding is that EFET as the authority over food quality and safety within Greece has jurisdiction to interpret how EU regulations should be implemented.” I asked them to confirm that fact.

The irony of this situation is that a reporter armed with a passion for reading research papers and legal briefs with no formal chemistry or legal background, would have to explain the chemistry behind EU regulations and legal standing of EFET in relation to the EU. Shortly after I published the positive decision, EFET flip-flopped once again and asked the EU for clarification on whether oleocanthal should be included.

This was a devastating turn of events for Greek olive oil, which contains more oleocanthal than oleacein. A favorable decision by EFET would have been a very positive development for an industry sorely in need of good news.

In the meantime, I had to resend my letter to the EU several times because they were reorganizing their offices and departments. The EU finally answered my question after a year’s delay and informed me that indeed National Food Safety agencies in EU member countries have full authority to interpret and implement EU regulations. The only time the EU gets involved when there is a complaint, in which case they try to mediate but the ultimate decision is determined by the EU court of justice.

Upon receiving the email I wrote back and asked if there was a complaint made against EFET by any other country or individual. They provided me with a link where all the complaints are registered. I verified there were no complaints made against EFET on this, or any other issue in fact.

This led me to the obvious conclusion that the complaint that caused EFET to change their opinion repeatedly originated from inside Greece. But who was responsible for stopping a regulation from being implemented that would have such a positive effect on Greek olive oil?

I decided to meet and interview the people who authored the letter, starting with Mr. Skaltsounis as he was in Athens and I had written to Boskou and Tsimidou previously and my emails went unanswered and phone calls were not returned. Tsimidou was also working on a new method to measure phenolic compounds in olive oil and had repeatedly ignored the NMR method.

Skaltsounis readily agreed to an interview. As the head of the Pharmacognocy department at the University of Athens, Skaltsounis was in the same department where Magiatis and Melliou conducted their research. I met Skaltsounis at his lab at the University.

Skaltsounis had recently published a paper where he announced the discovery of a new CE (Capillary Electrophoresis) method to measure oleocanthal and oleacein. Skaltsounis claimed this new method was verified by HPLC and he cited the Magiatis paper on NMR as proof of its validity. I asked him if Magiatis or Melliou verified his method using NMR. “They do not know what they are doing,” he said emphatically.

Not wanting to turn this interview into a debate I allowed him to continue. I wanted to find out what was behind his attacks on two scientists who work in his own department. I have seen scientific rivalries before but this one was personal.

Skaltsounis generously showed me around his lab and all his research work in progress. He happily posed for pictures while claiming not to seek out publicity like some “others.” An obvious reference to the publicity Magiatis and Melliou have received internationally for their work with Quantitative NMR.

Here is an excerpt from his research paper:

“To the best of our knowledge, here we describe the first validated CE-method suitable for the simultaneous, quantitative determination of oleocanthal and oleacein in olive oil. So far only one assay has been reported fulfilling these criteria (Karkoula, Magiatis et al.,2012). Compared to the latter, which utilized quantitative NMR, the CE assay is much simpler and economic, yet the quantitative results are comparable and equally reproducible… Other, more conventional approaches like HPLC require longer analysis time (40 versus 15 min) and facilitate the determination of oleocanthal only (Impellizzeri & Lin, 2006).”

There is some doubt whether the results are indeed accurate and reproducible as they use HPLC as one of their validation methods. HPLC has already been refuted by Magiatis in a study of the HPLC method and published it in a peer reviewed journal. Simply stated, oleocanthal and oleacein react with the methanol or/and water used in HPLC causing inaccurate measurements. In order for the Skaltsounis CE method to work, pure oleocanthal and oleacein are needed as reference standards.

“We are trying to produce pure oleocanthal and oleacein here in our lab. We plan to have them be the first validated and accepted pure forms of oleocanthal and oleacein,” Skaltsounis told me.

“So you will then be the provider of oleocanthal and oleacein for all the tests that would be conducted by this new method?” I asked. “Yes of course” he said. “We have another lab in the outskirts of Athens where we conduct our work as well in co-operation with the University,” he added.

“So with your CE method would you be able to measure oleocanthal and oleacein in order to substantiate the EU regulation?” I asked. “Well we do not know which ones to measure because they change over time.” he explained.

He showed me a graph that illustrated how oleocanthal and oleacein revert to their original hydroxytyrosol and tyrosol. “That simply proves that oleocanthal and oleacein are derivatives of hydroxytyrosol and tyrosol.” I remarked. But Skaltsounis just shook his head.

It became obvious to this reporter why Skaltsounis would not want this regulation to be implemented using NMR method of measurement.

Greece is in the midst of a brain drain that forces the brightest and most talented scientists to seek work abroad. But it gets worse. Greece seems to be also suffering an intellectual property drain.

The Greek scientific community continues to innovate and invent new methods and patentable ideas and discoveries. But what happens to them? Where do they go? Who gets the credit and who benefits?

I learned from another professor that Magiatis had lodged an official complaint with the University of Athens about a patent Skaltsounis had registered in the US patent office in collaboration with the City of Hope cancer research facility in California. Magiatis claims he was one of the inventors but he was not credited and neither was the University of Athens. I asked Magiatis about this and he confirmed that he did indeed file the complaint.

The complaint lodged against Skaltsounis regarding the patent rights of Magiatis and the University of Athens still sits in a desk somewhere. Two successive deans at the University have taken no action to investigate the complaint of scientific misconduct against Skaltsounis made over a year ago. It sits unanswered and uninvestigated like so many other things in Greece.

It should be noted that Skaltsounis‘s brother is a Supreme court judge in Greece. It has been suggested perhaps this is the reason for the inaction. Perhaps the authorities are not eager to investigate possible misconduct against the brother of a Supreme Court judge.

I sent a copy of this article to Boskou, Tsimidou and Skaltsounis but received no reply or comment.

The fact is, NMR not only measures oleocanthal and oleacein but a number of other phenolic compounds all in one pass and within 3 minutes. There is no ongoing income stream from the NMR method for the scientists who discovered it. There is a glut of NMR equipment sitting idle or in universities and research labs internationally. Would it not be better to put them to use instead of trying to develop another method that only measures two phenolic compounds and requires the purchase of pure oleocanthal and oleacein?

The IOC is about to decide on what method they should officially accept for the accurate measurement of individual phenolic compounds in olive oil. The answer is obvious.

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