Revisions Advance for U.S. Olive Oil Promotion Cooperative Plan

Summary

The USDA is col­lab­o­rat­ing with the NAOOA to refine a pro­posal for a national olive oil pro­mo­tion coop­er­a­tive, with revi­sions being made to bet­ter sup­port olive oil pro­duc­ers and address con­cerns about admin­is­tra­tive bur­dens. The ini­tia­tive has gained broad sup­port across the sec­tor, with stake­hold­ers empha­siz­ing the need for coor­di­nated mes­sag­ing, edu­ca­tion, and aware­ness to democ­ra­tize olive oil con­sump­tion and pro­mote its health ben­e­fits in the U.S.

USDA is work­ing with the North American Olive Oil Association (NAOOA) to refine the pro­posal for a national olive oil pro­mo­tion coop­er­a­tive.

The pro­posal, orig­i­nally sub­mit­ted ear­lier this year, is being updated to bet­ter sup­port olive oil pro­duc­ers fol­low­ing another round of dis­cus­sions that con­tin­ued even dur­ing the gov­ern­ment shut­down.

The gov­ern­ment has been work­ing and review­ing our pro­posal, even dur­ing the period of the shut­down. I view that as some­thing very pos­i­tive.- Joseph R. Profaci, exec­u­tive direc­tor, NAOOA

Such revi­sions do not guar­an­tee approval, but they sug­gest USDA is giv­ing the ini­tia­tive seri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion.

Joseph R. Profaci, NAOOA’s exec­u­tive direc­tor, told Olive Oil Times he was encour­aged by the pace of the review.

“The gov­ern­ment has been work­ing and review­ing our pro­posal, even dur­ing the period of the shut­down,” he said. ​“I view that as some­thing very pos­i­tive.”

Recent exchanges with USDA focused on how to sup­port domes­tic pro­duc­ers with­out cre­at­ing addi­tional admin­is­tra­tive bur­dens.

The agency asked NAOOA to clar­ify how the board would han­dle cred­its for domes­tic pro­duc­ers who already con­tribute funds to state-level com­mis­sions for pro­duc­tion research.

“They said that mech­a­nism as orig­i­nally writ­ten could have been too dif­fi­cult to admin­is­ter,” Profaci said.

The revised approach would allow state com­mis­sions to apply directly to the national board for fund­ing to sup­port regional research or pro­mo­tional activ­i­ties.

Profaci described the updated mech­a­nism as ​“cleaner,” not­ing that it mir­rors the honey board’s struc­ture, which allo­cates five per­cent of its annual bud­get to pro­duc­tion research. The change would ben­e­fit domes­tic pro­duc­ers and state com­mis­sions but would not affect com­pa­nies that only import olive oil.

While USDA has not pro­vided a time­line, Profaci said the indus­try remains hope­ful the pro­posal could move to pub­lic com­ment early next year.

The ini­tia­tive is gain­ing broad sup­port across the sec­tor.

“NAOOA is spear­head­ing the peti­tion, with the sup­port of a Blue Ribbon Committee com­posed of stake­hold­ers from across the indus­try, includ­ing Pompeian,” said Mouna Aissaoui, CEO of Pompeian, the largest olive oil importer and pro­ducer in the U.S.

Aissaoui said the pro­posed board could help over­come long­stand­ing frag­men­ta­tion in the U.S. olive oil mar­ket. ​“It is the first indus­try-wide ini­tia­tive designed to ben­e­fit all domes­tic and imported play­ers under a sin­gle plat­form,” she noted.

She empha­sized the need for coor­di­nated mes­sag­ing to raise aware­ness of olive oil, not­ing that ​“many of its health ben­e­fits and sus­tain­abil­ity val­ues often go unrec­og­nized.”

With 60 per­cent of American house­holds not pur­chas­ing olive oil and per-capita con­sump­tion at roughly 1.1 kilo­grams per year, she sees a press­ing need to ​“democ­ra­tize olive oil, mak­ing it more acces­si­ble, under­stood, and widely used across American house­holds.”

Aissaoui also under­scored the sus­tain­abil­ity advan­tages of per­ma­nent crops such as olives, cit­ing FAO data on their envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits. She added that a national pro­gram could influ­ence how retail­ers posi­tion olive oil as part of a healthy lifestyle.

Jonathan Sciabica, whose fam­ily is the old­est con­tin­u­ously oper­at­ing olive oil pro­ducer in the U.S., warned that per capita con­sump­tion data masks sig­nif­i­cant regional dif­fer­ences.

“In the U.S. you will find heavy users of olive oil and not-at-all users,” he said. Those who do use olive oil tend to be engaged, health-con­scious shop­pers who care about qual­ity, authen­tic­ity and ori­gin.

He said the pro­posed pro­mo­tional order could help nar­row the gap between regions where olive oil knowl­edge is strong and areas where aware­ness remains low. ​“There’s proof in the pud­ding,” he added, not­ing that con­sumers who under­stand the prod­uct ​“will buy more expen­sive olive oil” and ​“pay for qual­ity.”

Sciabica pointed to the suc­cess of national com­mod­ity cam­paigns — such as Got Milk or the mango board — as evi­dence of what coor­di­nated indus­try pro­mo­tion can achieve.

Beyond adver­tis­ing, he said edu­ca­tion is crit­i­cal: ​“Classes, sem­i­nars, oppor­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple to really learn more about the prod­uct and how to cook with the prod­uct.” A national pro­gram, he added, could sig­nif­i­cantly expand those efforts.

Producers in other regions agree. In Oregon, Paul Durant of Red Ridge Farms said, ​“dri­ving aware­ness is crit­i­cal for the growth of the indus­try across all seg­ments.”

Durant said con­sumer under­stand­ing of qual­ity, culi­nary uses and health ben­e­fits remains lim­ited, though it has improved over the past two decades.

From the per­spec­tive of a small pro­ducer and health advo­cate, Chasity Pritchett, founder of Emblem Olive Oil and pres­i­dent of the Let’s Fight Back Foundation, said the U.S. remains behind other nations in under­stand­ing olive oil’s ben­e­fits.

“While other nations have long under­stood and embraced the pow­er­ful, sci­ence-backed ben­e­fits of olive oil, the U.S. has been slow to catch on,” she said, call­ing the delay ​“a missed oppor­tu­nity for both the mar­ket and pub­lic health.”

She argued that olive oil belongs at the cen­ter of the nation’s pre­ven­tive-health strat­egy and that ​“the time for action is now, not in another five to ten years.”

Pritchett said a USDA-backed pro­gram could close knowl­edge gaps by sup­port­ing research tai­lored to the American diet, strength­en­ing domes­tic grow­ers and small busi­nesses, and help­ing edu­cate doc­tors, schools and fam­i­lies about olive oil’s role in pre­vent­ing dis­ease.

“This pro­posal is a call to close the gap, invest in research, sup­port American grow­ers, and put olive oil where it belongs, in the heart of our health strat­egy,” she said.