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Athens News Agency: News in English, 08-07-11
CONTENTS
[01] Greek olive oil awarded
[01] Greek olive oil awarded
A Greek olive oil has won first prize in the medium green fruitiness
section of the Mario Solinas IOC Quality awards for extra virgin olive
oil in 2008, according to the results announced by the International
Olive Council based in Madrid. This is the second consecutive year that
the prize has gone to an olive oil produced in Greece.
The award was presented to the 'Agricultural Cooperatives of Kritsa'
from Lasithi, Crete during a special ceremony held on Thursday, which
was also attended by the Agrocert chairman Thomas Notos. The same
cooperative had won third prize in this category in 2006, while the
first prize in 2007 had gone to the Rafteli-Protouli M. Co oil from
Plomari in Greece.
After the chairman of Agricultural Cooperatives of Kritsa Nikos
Zachariades received the award, Notos congratulated all the award
winners and stressed the importance of the Mario Solinas awards, saying
that they were linked to assurances of food quality and safety and the
protection of consumers, as well as helping increase the income of oil
producers.
The ceremony was opened by the board chairman of the International
Olive Council Mohammed Ouhmad Sbitri, who stressed the importance of
awards that promoted the quality of olive oil. There followed the
presentation of the awards to the winners and the ceremony was closed
by Council President Shimon Lavee, who also congratulated the winners
and noted the awards had international recognition and were considered
the highest quality award for oil producers.
Other Greek olive oils that were among the finalists in the awards in
the intense green fruitiness sections were those produced by Botzakis
S.A. from Iraklio, Crete and the Agricultural Cooperative Eleonas from
Gargaliani in Messinia, while the Eleftherios Vourtsis oil from
Zakynthos was a finalist in the medium ripe fruitiness section.
Contestants in this year's awards included 76 olive oil producers from
the 10 member-states of the International Olive Council (Egypt, France,
Greece, Iran, Israel, Italy, Morocco, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, and
Spain). The producers winning awards can indicate this on their product
labels through a special logo provided by the Council.
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