Producers Reward Own Oils

The trend of competitions with high numbers of producer judges awarding higher medals, evident in the analysis of 2012 Australian extra virgin olive oil competitions, has continued in 2013. A comparison of awards given at the Melbourne and Sydney Fine Food Awards and the Australian Olive Association (AOA) Competition shows that for brands entered in all three, the Melbourne event awarded the highest medal in 11 cases.

The AOA competition awarded the highest medal in 7 cases and the Sydney Fine Food Show in 5. The judging panel of 13 in Melbourne included only 2 judges who are not producers. The AOA panel is no longer published but traditionally the majority are producers.

The Sydney Show panel, while not published to date, generally has a broader food and restaurant industry membership.

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USITC Report

The USITC report on the status of the olive oil market in the USA has received comment from many interest groups. The report provides very useful data on the world trade in olive oil and particularly the US market. As with many of these reports it gives every lobby group selective arguments to support their case.

One important analysis from the report, the econometric study of demand elasticity (‘ how demand for one oil is affected by price changes in another’) has received little comment. In summary the analysis leads to the following conclusions:

• ‘There is little evidence that purchases of domestic branded extra virgin olive oil are affected by price changes for branded foreign extra virgin olive oil, private label extra virgin olive oil, or all other grades of olive oil.’

Read more: USITC Report