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Savantes Recognises Individual Olive Oil Tasting Skills
Tasting the World’s Leading Olive Oils
Melbourne, 25th - 27th March 2012
International Olive Oil Savantes is one of the few organisations that reward individuals for demonstrating their expertise in tasting olive oils. The award of Extra Virgin Olive Oil Savante and Membership of the Savantes Register is bestowed on programme participants who achieve the required score in the ‘Testing Your Skill as a Taster’ session on the third day of the current programme. The session involves identifying different styles of olive oils, detecting defects, naming the countries that produce oils tasted and identifying oils, amongst a set of oils, that are produced or sold by the participant.
Associate Savantes status is bestowed on those that achieve a score slightly less than that for full Savantes and demonstrate that their skill level deserves recognition.
Grand certificates are presented to Savantes and Associate Savantes and can be displayed as testament to taster’s ability assessed by a third independent party. This recognition is especially valuable to producers and resellers of extra virgin olive oils, as well as food industry commentators.
Read more: Savantes Recognises Individual Olive Oil Tasting Skills
Savantes Asia Pacific 2012
Tasting the World’s Leading Olive Oils
Melbourne, Australia, 25th - 27th July 2012
In 12 years Extra Virgin Olive Oil Savantes has held over 25 olive oil tasting programmes in many countries – Australia, Italy, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
During this time the three-day programme has evolved into one of the world’s leading independent forums for the commercially important attributes of extra virgin olive oil. Participants in the programme are able to:
- Taste the wide range of styles and flavour of extra virgin olive oils from many regions around the world
- Taste international award winners from the northern and southern hemispheres
- Evaluate your own new season extra virgin olive oil by comparison
- Discuss market trends in producing and importing countries
- Explore the culinary and health selling points of extra virgin olive oil
- Make friends and expand your networks worldwide
- Practice your blending skill
- Achieve recognition of your own tasting ability and knowledge by becoming an Associate Savante or Member of the Register of Extra Virgin Olive Oil Savantes
EVOO Savantes Tasting Programme in the USA
An International Extra Virgin Olive Oil Savantes Programme is being planned for the North-east coast of the USA during September/October 2012. A date and venue will be announced soon.
Many producers of the world’s best extra virgin olive oil have already committed their products for tasting. If you would like to express interest in attending the programme, please add your details to the expression of interest form at the Extra Virign Olive Savantes website (click here).
For more information about Extra Virgin Olive Oil Savantes, please visit www.savantes.com.
PPP Test will favour trade in more robust oils
The PPP (pyropheophytins) test that is being promulgated by Australian and USA interests measures the degree of oxidation of extra virgin olive oils. The test has been labelled as inaccurate and inconsistent by those that oppose its introduction, including the International Olive Council.
Given that robust olive oils high in polyphenols, or anti-oxidants, are more resistant to oxidation it would seem that the PPP test will favour more robust oils. A high level of polyphenols is mainly manifest by intense bitter and pepper tastes in the oil.
Sharp Decline in Olive Oil Imports into Australia
Olive oil imports into Australia declined sharply in the last two months of 2011 according to data released by the International Olive Council.
In November 2011 imports declined by 14% with an even sharper decline of 55% in December 2011. No explanation was offered for the sharp decline. Imports also declined by 7% in Canada during the same period.
China and Russia showed substantial increases in imports, with Japan, Brazil and the United States showed smaller increases.
Is the Olive Oil Industry Suffering from Boiling Frog Syndrome?
The anecdote goes that if you drop a frog into boiling water it will jump out – but if you put the frog in water and heat it slowly the frog will not jump out and die.
This could be a metaphor for the olive oil industry where change has been taking place slowly and has been recently exacerbated by the international credit squeeze. The industry has been slow to respond with any sense of unity.
Short term negative effects on sales worldwide can be attributed to oversupply, poor terms of trade and a loss of confidence in extra virgin olive oil resulting from wide publicity given to fraud allegations and convictions. In a few years this ‘perfect storm’ should abate and longer term issues will become more apparent.
Extra virgin olive oil has three main sales advantages. It is fresh and not refined, it has health advantages and it has great taste characteristics. But it is expensive. All three characteristics are vulnerable: more vegetable oils are being cold-pressed, oils like canola are being genetically-engineered to have fatty acid profiles as good as olive oil and polyphenols can be added to enhance the anti-oxidant profile. So it comes down to taste and that is appreciated by a relatively small number of consumers.
Read more: Is the Olive Oil Industry Suffering from Boiling Frog Syndrome?