A Difficult Year for Olive Farmers in Italy

It’s been almost two years since jovial introduced a reserve blend extra virgin olive oil pressed from three ancient varieties of olives. This product is a local treasure that can only be found in Italy, but Carla and Rodolfo, our company founders, live in Italy for a good part of the year and have a passion for finding specialty foods like this oil. We were so proud and excited to share this product with you, and we are even more grateful that we have built a great following of customers who order our oil regularly, and appreciate the exceptional flavor of this quality product.

We were looking forward to offering a promotional price for the olio nuovo, freshly pressed oil that is bottled in late December, as we did last year. However, heavy rains in the late summer and fall in Italy caused the olive fly to proliferate, causing extensive damage to the country’s olive harvest this year. It is estimated that the total production of olive oil in Italy has dropped by 35% this year, causing price hikes, quality issues, and instability in the market.

Most organic farms grow their olives at higher altitudes and use pheromone traps to keep the olive fly at bay. This year, there was no way to control the proliferation of this insect in all olive-growing regions of Italy, a situation that has never occurred to this severe of a degree. The fly ruins the olive by depositing its larvae in the fruit, destroying the pulp as bacteria causes the olive to rot before harvest. The olives turn black and if harvested and pressed, they create a dark oil with a terribly bitter flavor. Sadly, many farmers with a high-quality olive oil decided not to harvest their olives or others began the harvest, only to find the oil of bad quality when they began pressing.

Ancient varieties of olives, like the varieties we press our oil from, are naturally stronger and more resistant because they have survived for thousands of years, essentially living through hundreds of bad crops and extreme weather conditions without the aid of chemicals. Our olives were mildly affected by the fly. Fortunately, our farms are located in the Veneto region of Northern Italy where the climate is cooler, and the olives ripen slowly. Our harvest turned out well in the end and the oil has the same fabulous flavor this year despite the long delay for our first bottling. Our farmers wanted to guarantee they used only the healthy olives so they had to wait for damaged olives to fall to the ground before beginning the harvest of the ripe olives that remained on the trees.

We are really happy that the new harvest has finally arrived at our warehouse and is ready to ship. Thanks to the ancient varieties, our harvest went well, so there will be no price increases or shortages in supply for the jovial product this year.

To learn more about what makes jovial reserve blend organic extra virgin olive oil so special, take a few minutes to travel to Italy with our founder to visit our farmers.