Are Laboratories the Replacing the Palate?
There are many reasons given for the current oversupply of olive oil around the world – tariffs, trade agreements, loss of consumer confidence and the ubiquitous absence of educated consumers. Most of these are out of the control of the producers.
Contributing to this oversupply is declining or stagnant consumption in the main consuming countries – Spain, Italy, Greece and the USA.
There is one consideration which we observe in tasting extra virgin olive oils in Savantes programmes which does not get much attention. That is the question of whether the drive for quality defined by chemical parameters is producing a robust and bitter style and flavour of extra virgin olive oil which consumers do not like.