Tunisian Olive Oil

Olive oil is one of the most widely adulterated foods in world trade, which makes most quality claims worth very little. A medal from a blind tasting panel is one of the few a seller cannot manufacture. The oil we carry has a shelf of them.

The competition record

• NYIOOC, New York. Gold in 2021, gold and silver in 2022. The New York competition is the one the industry actually watches.
• Berlin GOOA and London IOOC. Platinum at both, including London’s health-category platinum, which is judged on polyphenol content rather than taste alone.
• OLIVE JAPAN. Silver in 2021, judged by a Japanese panel against oils sold into this market.
• Dubai. One gold and two silver, which matters if you are selling into the Gulf.

The full record runs to roughly ten golds, nine silvers and a bronze across four continents. We list these four because a buyer in Tokyo and a buyer in Dubai each care about a different one.

The producer

A third-generation family operation with groves worked since 1890 in Sfax and Sousse, and its own mill on site. Pressing where the fruit is picked is not a romantic detail: olives begin to degrade within hours of harvest, and the gap between grove and mill is one of the few things that genuinely separates good oil from ordinary oil.

The variety is Chemlali, the dominant Tunisian olive, and the oil is single variety rather than blended. Certification covers USDA Organic, FSSC food safety, ISO and Kosher, alongside Tunisian national certification.

How you can take it

• Bulk. Flexitank or IBC, bottled at destination. Most price-competitive, and you control bottle and label. Filling and labelling compliance move to your side.
• Bottled at origin. Arrives ready to sell in standard Marasca, Dorica or Fresca formats, with the estate and the awards behind it.
• Private label. Bottled at origin under your own brand. Confirmed available. This keeps the traceability and the certification while the shelf presence is yours.

Practical notes

• Organic certification does not travel automatically. USDA Organic does not by itself permit the word organic on a Japanese label. There is an equivalency route, but it requires a registered importer to carry out the JAS grading. We confirm the current requirement before you commit to label artwork, because artwork is expensive to redo.
• Harvest date beats best-before date. Oil is at its best young. Eighteen months left on the date can still mean a two-year-old harvest. We supply the harvest date as a matter of course.
• Light and heat destroy oil. If you are bottling at your end, the container decision matters as much as the oil going into it.

Tell us the volume, the format and whether you want your own label, and we will send samples with the analysis and the certificates.