Šolta Farmers Win Again at World Competition

Croatian producer Zlatna Šoltanka has won a Gold Award at the 2020 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

All olive growers on the small island of Šolta are proud and full of joy for the repeated and great success in the most important olive oil competition in the world. Thanks to the awards at NYIOOC, Šolta olive oil has become a sought-after brand and is sold at prices that motivate young people to start producing high-quality olive oil.

Zlatko Burić, president

The company earned the award for its Soltansko Maslinovo Ulje brand, an organic robust monovarietal Soltanka. It is the fourth year in a row that the brand has been awarded at the competition.

"All olive growers on the small island of Šolta are proud and full of joy for the repeated and great success in the most important olive oil competition in the world," president Zlatko Burić said.

"Thanks to the awards at NYIOOC, Šolta olive oil has become a sought-after brand and is sold at prices that motivate young people to start producing high-quality olive oil."

In the 2019/20 season, Zlatna Šoltanka produced 3,500 liters of organic extra virgin olive oil using traditional methods.

Even with such a successful outcome at the competition, Burić said that the 2019/2020 season was not without challenges, citing dry weather and the olive fly as the growers' main hurdles.

"The island of Šolta is a small rocky island in Dalmatia," he said. "The classic problem in 2019 was droughts, lack of rain. The local government helped the olive growers by bringing water for irrigation with fire trucks. The second problem was the olive fly, due to the high summer heat."

The NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, held each spring in New York, is the world's largest and most prestigious olive oil contest and its annual listing of award winners is considered the authoritative guide to the year’s best extra virgin olive oils.

The complete list of winners can be viewed on the Official Index of the World's Best Olive Oils