olives101OLIVE NEWS & INFORMATION 🇺🇸 🇫🇷

Year: 2011

EN

Greeks Trade Down to Cheaper Olive Oil

A new study finds Greek olive oil consumption down 6.1 percent and packaged oil losing ground to bulk as households cut spending…

EN

Extra Virginity: Tom Mueller’s Book Takes On Olive Oil Fraud

Extra Virginity, Tom Mueller's new book, shows how stale and cut oil ends up sold as extra virgin. What it argues and…

EN

Two Jailed Over Sunflower Oil Sold as Extra Virgin

Two Cordoba businessmen accepted two-year sentences for selling hundreds of thousands of litres of sunflower oil dyed to look like extra virgin.

EN

Pakistan Maps Out Olive Country in Punjab

Pakistan has picked nine Punjab districts for olive planting and wants to cut its cooking oil import bill. What the plan gets…

EN

A Bioplastic Bottle Made From Olive Skins

A researcher in Jaen has drawn a biodegradable plastic out of olive skins in mill waste, and says a mill could earn…

EN

Kailis Organic Olive Groves Goes Into Administration

Kailis Organic Olive Groves is in administration a year after raising A$25.5 million. What happened, how it got here, and what it…

EN

Rain Knocks Catalonia’s Olive Harvest to the Ground

Drought cut Catalonia's olive crop, then a week of downpours put much of it on the ground. Growers report losses of up…

EN

Storage Aid Rally Fades as Olive Oil Prices Slip Again

World olive oil trade is up 10 percent, but Spanish prices have fallen back to 1.85 euros a kilo, wiping out the…

EN

Syria Picks a Record Olive Crop in a Country in Turmoil

Syria's olive harvest is heading for a record of up to 200,000 tons of oil while the country is in turmoil. Who…

EN

Australian Olive industry attacks Coles and Woolworths over labelling

Australia wrote one of the world's toughest olive-oil standards — then had to fight its own supermarkets to enforce it. The story…

EN

U.S. Customs finds olive fruit flies in San Diego

A handful of fresh olives in a traveller's bag can carry the pest that ruins an entire industry. This is why border…

EN

California vs European Olive Oil: What’s the Difference?

American olive oil has grown up and now goes head to head with the European bottles that ruled the shelf for centuries.…

EN

Turkey’s olive oil exports expected to reach $5 bln by 2023

Turkey has long promised to convert its huge olive harvest into a major export business. The ambition is real, the obstacles are…

EN

Black Olive toasts

Ten minutes, five ingredients: a quick black-olive tapenade grilled onto crusty bread. The simplest way to turn good olives into a proper…

EN

Remove Heat Stains from Wood Tables with an Iron and Olive Oil

A hot mug on a wooden table leaves a ghostly white ring — and a clothes iron, a towel and a little…

EN

Growing an Olive Tree in a Pot (or as Bonsai)

You don't need a Mediterranean hillside to grow an olive. They take happily to pots and patios — and the olive is…

EN

How Olives Are Harvested

The moment an olive leaves the tree is the single biggest cost in the bottle. Hand or machine, that one choice shapes…

EN

California tightens olive oil labeling rules

California wrote some of the world's toughest olive-oil labelling rules to protect honest producers from imported fakes — the story of why…

EN

Gold in Australian olive trees

Some of the most interesting olive oils come from forgotten heritage trees that no one can quite identify. Here is why old,…

EN

Jordan Ministry to help farmers market Olive Oil

Jordan is a top-ten olive-oil nation where the tree is woven into land, economy and identity. Why olives matter so much there…

EN

How to Taste Olive Oil Like a Pro

Pros slurp olive oil from little blue glasses and talk about pungency and fustiness. It looks absurd — and it's the fastest…

EN

How to Marinate Olives (and Make Them Yours)

Plain brined olives are a blank canvas. Twenty minutes of gentle warmth with the right aromatics turns a cheap jar into something…

EN

Remove Tar From Clothing With Olive Oil

Long before it was a health food, olive oil was a household workhorse — a gentle solvent and softener that lifts sticky…

EN

Can Olive Leaf Extract Lower Blood Pressure?

One of the most common questions about olive leaf. The honest answer: possibly, a little, for some people — not a cure.…

EN

Californian Olive growers decry foreign subsidies

Why does a Californian olive farmer struggle while cheaper imported oil floods the shelves? The answer is a tangle of subsidies, scale…

EN

Bell Carter Foods in Corning, CA is bustling

The can of black olives on your pizza is a California invention: a green olive turned black by air and lye, not…

EN

Olive Oil and Heart Health: The Honest Version

Olive oil is the most studied fat in the human diet, and the heart-health headline holds up — but the benefit lives…

EN

Spanish Olive Oil Expert Partners with Top Los Angeles Chef for an Exclusive Tasting

You don't need a chef's tasting to learn to taste olive oil like an expert. Here is how the professionals do it…

EN

Dirty Jobs – Olive Oil Presser

Turning olives into oil is wet, heavy, sticky, relentless work against the clock. Behind the elegant bottle is a dirty job —…

EN

Spicy beef, olive & caramelised onion pie

How to cook olives into a rich, spiced beef braise — the pie that started as a family favourite, rebuilt as a…

EN

Olive harvest season in Spain

When and how Spain brings in the world's biggest olive crop — table olives first in early autumn, oil olives through winter,…

EN

New test to detect color adulteration of green olives

Some green table olives are quietly dyed a permanent, unnatural green with a banned copper colorant. Here is how the fraud works,…

EN

Pakistani Government to promote olive cultivation

Pakistan has spent years betting on olives to cut a huge edible-oil import bill. Here is why the Potohar plateau keeps coming…

EN

All about olives at Silverdale farm

What it really takes to run a small family olive farm in Australia — Greek roots, hand-picking, a mixed grove, and selling…

EN

Palestinian ‘olive trees uprooted’ in West Bank

In the hills of the West Bank the olive tree is more than a crop — it is livelihood, inheritance and identity.…

EN

Hernando County couple hoping olive business takes root

As they wound through the Italian countryside in January, Cambren Davis and Deirdre Rizzo were struck by the picture postcard images all…

EN

We’re back

Why an olive site keeps at it year after year: the fruit changes slowly, the trade changes constantly, and there is always…

EN

Spanish Olive Oil Prices Fall Below the EU Trigger

Virgin olive oil in Spain has slipped under the EU trigger price of 1.71 euros a kilo. Growers say Brussels now has…

EN

IOC Launches ‘Add Some Life’ Olive Oil Campaign in New York

The IOC's Add Some Life campaign, worth 1.2 million euros, opened in New York. What it wants to achieve, who runs it,…

EN

First 2011/12 Forecasts Point to Another Big Crop

The olive council's first 2011/12 estimates have Spain at 1.4 million tons and Tunisia up by half, while producer prices keep sliding.

EN

Shoppers Call Olive Oil Healthiest, and Cannot Say Why

Surveys put olive oil top of the healthy oils list, yet only a third of people think monounsaturated fat is healthy. The…

EN

Marco Mugelli, Who Taught Italy to Taste Its Oil, Dies

Marco Mugelli, the Tuscan agronomist behind Italy's professional olive oil tasters, has died at 62. What he changed in the mill and…

EN

Andalusia Blames Bad Storage, Not Fraud, for Failed Oils

Andalusia's olive oil fraud inquiry now blames poor storage, not fraud, for 15 failed batches. What was found, who is angry, and…

EN

Borges Bets $2.7 Million on Indian Olive Oil Buyers

Borges has hired an Indian agency for a $2.7 million campaign. Why Spain's big brands spend hard in a market that barely…

EN

One Olive Oil Health Claim Survives Europe’s Cull

Europe is set to ban most unproven food health claims. Olive polyphenols kept one claim, on protecting LDL from oxidation, with conditions.

EN

Paso Robles Doubles Its Olive Oil Tasting Classes

UC Davis and the California Olive Oil Council are running two sensory classes before the Paso Robles Olive Festival. Why tasting is…

EN

Australia Publishes Its Olive Oil Standard, AS 5264

Australia's olive oil standard, AS 5264, is out. What it says about extra virgin, light and pure, why the IOC objected, and…

EN

Olive Council Advisers Meet in Istanbul as Imports Climb

Imports rose 20 percent in six markets while Greek consumption fell. What the olive council's advisory committee heard in Istanbul.

EN

Chile’s Olive Oil Exports More Than Triple

Chile shipped 1,522 tons of olive oil in the first five months of 2011, up 221 percent, with the United States taking…

EN

Grupo SOS Renames Itself Deoleo and Bets on Olive Oil

Grupo SOS is now Deoleo after selling its rice arm and the SOS name to Ebro Foods. What changed, why, and what…

EN

The Mills That Drive to the Olives in California

North America has two mobile olive mills and both are booked out. Why milling within hours of picking changes the oil in…

EN

French Study Links Daily Olive Oil to Fewer Strokes

A French study of 7,625 older people found 41 percent fewer strokes among heavy olive oil users. What it shows, and what…

EN

Cobram and Sciabica Win the Los Angeles Competition

The 2011 Los Angeles olive oil competition drew 599 oils from 23 countries. Australia's Cobram Estate and California's Sciabica took the top…

EN

Beyond Extra Virgin: A Congress on Premium Olive Oil

The Beyond Extra Virgin congress opens in Cordoba this week to argue that the top grade is not the top of the…

EN

Mario Solinas Quality Award 2011: Spain and Portugal Sweep

The 2011 Mario Solinas Quality Award went to El Labrador, SAOV and Sociedade Agricola do Conde. The results, the rules, and what…

EN

Olive Council Sees the Second Biggest Crop on Record

The olive council puts world olive oil production at 3.08 million tons, second only to 2003/04, with Morocco, Syria and Turkey rising.…

EN

Expoliva Opens in Jaen With Credit for Growers

Expoliva 2011 opened in Jaen with Andalusia promising loans to producers selling below cost. What the fair says about a sector in…

EN

A Seed Compound That Could Catch Oil Adulteration

A new olive oil adulteration test looks for trigonelline, a compound seed oils carry and olives do not. Cheap and simple, and…

EN

India’s Olive Oil Imports Jump 60 Percent in a Year

India imported 4,187 tonnes of olive oil in 2010, up 60 percent. Spain and Italy take 90 percent of it, and most…

EN

A Wet Year Points to a Record Australian Olive Crop

The Australian olive harvest is starting with forecasts of 16,000 to 19,000 tonnes after a very wet year. What the rain did…

EN

UC Davis Olive Oil Report: Top Imported Brands Fail Again

The second UC Davis olive oil report found 73% of top imported extra virgin samples failed two taste panels. The brand results…

EN

Olive Oil Diet and Aging Arteries: A Cordoba Trial

An olive oil diet left arteries with fewer signs of damage in a small Cordoba trial of 20 older volunteers. What those…

EN

The EU’s Alkyl Ester Limit Starts on Friday

From April 1 extra virgin olive oil sold in the EU must pass an alkyl ester test. What the limit catches, what…

EN

Spain Maps the Olive Genome to Breed Better Trees

Spanish scientists say they have built a genetic map of the olive and found genes behind oil fats, antioxidants and aroma. What…

EN

Olive Growers March in Jaén as Brussels Weighs Storage Aid

Over 12,000 growers marched in Jaén as Brussels agreed to study private storage aid for olive oil. The prices, the triggers, and…

EN

Mediterranean Diet and Metabolic Syndrome: 50 Studies

A review of 50 studies and half a million people links the Mediterranean diet to lower metabolic syndrome risk. The effects are…

EN

Florence Prosecutors Open a Deodorized Olive Oil Case

Italian investigators seized 450 tons of allegedly deodorized olive oil and paperwork from four plants. What deodorized oil is and why it…

EN

California Senate Sets Up an Olive Oil Subcommittee

California's Senate has created a subcommittee on olive oil production, chaired by Lois Wolk. What the state's growers want out of it.

EN

Argentina Pledges Aid for Catamarca’s Olive Growers

After 200 layoffs, Argentina has promised aid for the Catamarca olive industry. What was pledged, why the groves are hurting, and what…

EN

Shoppers Liked the Faulty Oils, UC Davis Study Finds

UC Davis tested olive oil taste on 110 shoppers: 74 percent disliked the oils experts rated best and 44 percent liked defects.…

EN

Spain Keeps the Tasting Panel After a Letter From the Trade

Four Spanish olive oil bodies questioned how the tasting panel is applied. Madrid kept the method and will ask the olive council…

EN

Trans Fats and Depression: What the Spanish Study Found

A 12,000 person Spanish study links trans fats to depression risk and finds only a weak signal for olive oil. What the…

EN

Palestinian Fair Trade Olive Oil Gets a California Boost

Palestinian fair trade olive oil: Canaan founder Nasser Abufarha collects a 25,000 dollar donation in Santa Cruz. How the West Bank system…

EN

Queensland Floods Swamp a Young Olive Industry

The Queensland floods have hit olive growers weeks before a bumper crop. What was lost, why the timing hurts, and what it…

EN

Hojiblanca Lands a 3,000 Ton Olive Oil Order From China

Hojiblanca will ship 3,000 tons of extra virgin olive oil to China, part of the deals signed as Beijing shops in Madrid.…