Californians won what?
“We are the most beautiful country in the world.” “We have the greatest culture.” “We have the best cuisine.” These are some of the cliches that often lead us to arrogance and inaction. When you think you’re the best at everything, you find no reason to try, so you don’t develop. There is another stereotype that we constantly repeat: that “we are a world leader in olive oil and we produce the best-quality olive oil in the world.”
Many decades ago, both might have been true, but in recent years this is no longer the case. In terms of world leaders in olive oil, Spain, Turkey, Tunisia, and Italy rank much higher than us. Tunisia in particular, which has a large production of olive oil, has signed agreements with the European Union to cover the gaps in the EU market. And in terms of quality, too, where traditionally Greece used to sweep the international awards, now we have many competitors even in countries that we could not have imagined until recently.
When you think you’re the best at everything, you find no reason to try, so you don’t develop
Who would have expected, for example, that in an international olive oil competition held recently in Sparta, the first prize would be won by an olive oil producer from California, the second by Brazil, a country that produces only 500 tons of olive oil a year and which 15 years ago did not have a single olive tree, and the third from Spain – with Greece remaining outside the top three places.
The world map of olive oil will undergo impressive changes in the future. The climate crisis and its consequences will affect countries with a long tradition in production, while on the other hand, suitable climatic conditions will be created in other countries, so that they can engage in olive cultivation.
We saw this year how the price of olive oil skyrocketed, after a very hot and dry summer in much of the Mediterranean that greatly reduced production. In the coming years, the decline may be greater. The olive oil market is transforming and Greece must figure out how it will face the new challenges.
