An innovative introduced to the 2014 and 2015 AOA and Olives SA Table Olive Competitions was the inclusion in both the testing and blind tastings of 20 commercial green, black and Kalamata table olive products purchased from local supermarkets. Convenor of the National Table Olive Committee Peter McFarlane said that, while these products were not eligible for awards, the results showed that three imported products were of silver medal standard and seven were of bronze medal standard. However the remaining five products scored much lower than the Australian competition exhibits, with two bordering on ‘inedible’. McFarlane said the message for Australian table olive producers and consumers alike is that locally produced table olives are measurably superior to product currently available on supermarket shelves – which are mostly imported from Spain, Greece, Italy, and Turkey.
We’ll look more closely at the testing and results in the December edition of Olivegrower & Processor.
