California’s Olive Truck Wins 4 Awards at 2022 NYIOOC

Olive Truck from California has won four awards at the 2022 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, the world's most prestigious olive oil quality contest.

This is an amazing achievement that makes us very proud and is great motivation for me as a producer, olive oil enthusiast and entrepreneur.

Sam Bayraktar, owner

The company, which produces olive oil in a mobile laboratory inside of a truck, earned three Gold Awards for its Field Tuscan Blend, a robust Coratina and a medium Taggiasca. Olive Truck also earned a Silver Award for a medium Frantoio. The mobile producer previously earned three Gold Awards in 2020.

"This is an amazing achievement that makes us very proud and is great motivation for me as a producer, olive oil enthusiast and entrepreneur," owner Sam Bayraktar said. "It also brings big responsibility. We need to sustain producing top olive oils each season."

In the 2021/22 crop year, the company produced 5,000 liters of extra virgin olive oil. Bayraktar said that despite this year's success, climate change and drought continue to pose challenges to his production operations.

"There is a tiny window where you can harvest green olives to be able to make more complexly flavored olive oils that also contain a higher level of polyphenols," he said.

"The climate and micro-climates are changing rapidly and the early harvest season is moving from early November to early October in California," Bayraktar added

The NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, held each spring in New York, is the world's largest and most prestigious olive oil contest. 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 in the Official Guide to the World's Best Olive Oils.