State, National Olive Industries Continue to Impress

Originally published in the Aug. 21, 2013, issue

 

Jason Shaw checks on his olive crop at Georgia Olive Farms in Lakeland, Ga. Photo courtesy Georgia Olive Farms

By Dallas Duncan

Nearly two years after the first harvest, producer Jason Shaw has one goal in mind: lessening America’s dependence on foreign oil.

Olive oil, that is.

Georgia olive producers teamed up with growers in California and Texas to form a national organization, aiming to market the American product through educating consumers.

“We’re only producing about three percent of the olive oil in the US right now. It was only one percent five years ago,” said Shaw, one of three owners of Georgia Olive Farms in Lakeland, Ga. “We’re growing it. … We’re all in it together building a viable domestic industry.”

The three olive-producing states hosted a tasting event in New York last summer and invited national media outlets. Georgia Olive Farms is no stranger to media attention – it’s been featured in The Washington Post, Atlanta Magazine, Garden & Gun and more – and the New York tasting brought even more spotlight.

The most recent accolades came from Delish.com, the food website partnership between MSN and Hearst Corporation.

“We couldn’t make it [to the event], so we were lucky enough to have … a tasting, which included the one from Georgia and Texas,” said Kiri Tannenbaum, contributing editor for Delish.com. “We were like, ‘Oh, these are great.’”

She said they tasted as good, if not better, than some artisanal oils she tried in Europe.

“I think a lot of Americans don’t think about olive oil as something being produced in the US,” she said. “There’s this idea that you need Italian olive oil and people don’t know some of those major brands are not really pure. They’re not grown from one single estate. … They could be blends from different countries.”

That’s why one of Shaw’s goals is to ensure stricter labeling rules on olive oil, so when consumers think they’re buying an extra-virgin variety, they really are.

“Quite frankly, a lot of mislabeling in the marketplace with oil being labeled extra virgin that shouldn’t be labeled that way, it’s just refined or defective oil or in some cases blended with some oils that are not even olive oil,” he said. “Sixty-nine percent of those labeled as extra-virgin were mislabeled.”

Shaw learned “what olive oil tastes like” while going abroad.

“Then you get here and you get oil from the grocery store, and it doesn’t taste like that. That’s why we need standards so Americans … know that they’re getting what they’re paying for,” he said. “Olive oil is not like wine. It does not get better with age. Oil is never going to be better than the day that you squeeze it out of the olives.”

That’s what makes a good extra-virgin variety, said Georgia Grown Executive Chef Dave Snyder, owner of HalyardsRestaurant Group and Tramici in St. Simons, Ga.

“It hasn’t been touched,” Snyder said. “The olives are squeezed and the oil that comes off goes right into a jar.”

Georgia Grown Executive Chef Dave Snyder finishes
a dish using olive oil from Georgia Olive Farms. He
uses the oil at his restaurants in St. Simons, Ga. Photo
courtesy John Toth

He said one way consumers can ensure they’re getting the olive oil they’re paying for is the bottle color.

“You want to make sure you’re buying something that is in a greenish or tinted glass,” Snyder said. “Sunlight and light is harmful to olive oil. If someone says you’ve got extra-virgin olive oil and it’s in a clear glass, it’s probably not extra-virgin olive oil.”

Shaw said he’s excited so many chefs are interested in knowing where their food is grown.

“Our target market has always been our chef customers. Those were the guys who originally sort of discovered us and helped promote us,” Shaw said.

Snyder is one such customer. At his restaurants, the oil is used to finish dishes such as homemade mozzarella and the catch of the day special.

“They really know their stuff and obviously their product is incredibly good,” Snyder said. “Flavor is great, consistency is wonderful. … The flavor is rich, clean. There’s a nice fruitiness aspect to it, a little nuttiness to it. It’s what you want in an extra-virgin olive oil.”

The blended Georgia olive oil includes about 10 percent Koroneiki, a Greek olive variety known for its spiciness, as well as the two Spanish varieties grown in the state.

“It gives it just the right amount of kick at the end,” Shaw said. “That’s the product that most of our chef customers really love to use. Well-balanced oil that’s got a little bit of everything you need.”