The 8th WOOE is expecting more than 760 companies

The World Olive Oil Exhibition returns this coming Wednesday 27^th and Thursday 28^th of March, at Madrid’s IFEMA with more than 760 exhibitors from 10 different countries. In addition, Spain will be represented by ten different regions, which capture 98% of the national production. Pomona Keepers, organizing company, points out the significant presence of olive mills from Morocco and the consolidation of the fair at an international level.

The organizers expect an important presence of purchasers coming from all over the world, alongside the attendance of thirty or so IOC members, who will gather in Madrid for an advisory committee on the days prior to the WOOE, which facilitates their attendance; and the participation, for the first time ever, of a group of purchasers supported by Extenda, the Andalusian Agency for Foreign Trade Promotion.

One of the novelties of the WOOE is The Olive Oil Corner, an area devoted to small tasting sessions and product presentations. “El Desafío WOOE” (“The WOOE Challenge”), the first-ever salad competition that looks out for the best combination of EVOOs from the four different PDOs of Castile-La Mancha, will also be a key section of this area.

At the 2^nd WOOE Awards, the World Olive Oil Exhibition will recognize the efforts of the Regional Government of Jaen and Jaen’s “Fundación Caja Rural”, Aceites García de la Cruz, “Office National de l’Huile de la République Tunisienne” (Tunisian Olive Oil Office), “Interprofesional del Aceite de Orujo de Oliva” (Spanish Inter-professional Association for Olive Pomace Oil) and Borges International Group.

Beyond business

Throughout the fair, visitors will also have an extremely interesting program of conferences and tasting sessions that have experts from across the world such as Alexandra Kicenik, Joseph Profati or Simon Poole. Furthermore, the round-table discussions: “The tendency in olive oil consumption. Interactions with the distribution, the food processing industry and the sector’s gastronomic preferences” and “Reflections regarding olive oil consumption. The role of the canning industry, the catering industry and the user’s refinement” will bring together the most authoritative voices of each sector for the first time ever in order to examine the presence of olive oil in these sectors in a cross-disciplinary way.

The tasting room, as well as the Olive Oil Bar, will display a vast exhibition of EVOOs from almost all designations of origin from Spain and worldwide. As in the 7^th WOOE, the Olive Oil Bar will provide more than one hundred references. Mercacei will reveal the Evooleum Awards regarding the past harvest. Moreover, the chef Kike Piñeiro returns to the Gourmet Area delighting the attendees through a journey across the Mediterranean with olive oil as the protagonist. Chef Kike Piñeiro will run a unique culinary demonstration that will also be a gastronomical, landscaping and touristic journey through the native lands of the EVOOs selected by the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.