Saturday, December 11, 2004
The coming olive oil shake-up
It is not easy to find an original Christmas present for my mother and step-father, so for the past several years I've assembled gourmet food baskets. These are not off-the-shelf pre-packaged food baskets with a tasteful variety of gourmet foods pleasingly arranged. No, this is a unique pile of individually wrapped items chosen by me because I think they are cool, crammed into whatever wicker container happens to be handy.
I buy most of the items in this annual basket at four stores: Harry and David's and Williams-Sonoma, both at Princeton MarketFair, and McCaffery's Supermarket and Bon Appetit, both at the Princeton Shopping Center. Bon Appetit is a very nice store with many delicious foods, but it devotes an inordinate amount of shelf space to olive oils. I counted more than 30 different brands. I'm talking about just the brands -- each of which had different flavors, sizes, packages and so forth. All in, Bon Appetit must carry at least 100 different SKUs of olive oils (points to the commenter who knows what "SKU" stands for, without resorting to a search engine). This seems like a lot to me.
Newly curious about olive oil, I hunted around and came across this story, which reported in 2000 that there were more than 100 brands of olive oil on sale in Canada. What? The Canadian olive oil market is segmented so finely that there is room for 100 brands? Apparently. Indeed, the Canadian olive oil trade must be very lucrative, because it has inspired counterfeiters:
I understand counterfeiting Rolex watches or even DVDs, but olive oil? The adulteration is probably a symptom of the intense competition among the many brands. It is a sign that most companies selling high-end olive oil probably are not making a lot of money doing it. In a few years, I predict, the bloom will be off this particular rose, and many olive oil companies will go out of business or merge with other players. By 2010, Bon Appetit probably won't carry ten different brands of olive oil.
You read it here first.
I buy most of the items in this annual basket at four stores: Harry and David's and Williams-Sonoma, both at Princeton MarketFair, and McCaffery's Supermarket and Bon Appetit, both at the Princeton Shopping Center. Bon Appetit is a very nice store with many delicious foods, but it devotes an inordinate amount of shelf space to olive oils. I counted more than 30 different brands. I'm talking about just the brands -- each of which had different flavors, sizes, packages and so forth. All in, Bon Appetit must carry at least 100 different SKUs of olive oils (points to the commenter who knows what "SKU" stands for, without resorting to a search engine). This seems like a lot to me.
Newly curious about olive oil, I hunted around and came across this story, which reported in 2000 that there were more than 100 brands of olive oil on sale in Canada. What? The Canadian olive oil market is segmented so finely that there is room for 100 brands? Apparently. Indeed, the Canadian olive oil trade must be very lucrative, because it has inspired counterfeiters:
But price-conscious shoppers who purchase low-priced olive oils have to be careful. Some products that look like bargains could be fake.
Joe Di Lecce, a food specialist with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, says "we found oils that consisted mainly of vegetable oils other than olive oil," during inspections. "Some had sunflower oil, some had canola, some had pomace oil."
I understand counterfeiting Rolex watches or even DVDs, but olive oil? The adulteration is probably a symptom of the intense competition among the many brands. It is a sign that most companies selling high-end olive oil probably are not making a lot of money doing it. In a few years, I predict, the bloom will be off this particular rose, and many olive oil companies will go out of business or merge with other players. By 2010, Bon Appetit probably won't carry ten different brands of olive oil.
You read it here first.
2 Comments:
By 
Fausta, at
Mon Dec 13, 08:42:00 AM:
Counterfit olive oil -- why????
To me, Sam's Club and Bon Appetit are alike (Mr. Lemmerling -- BA's owner -- would have a fit if he ever reads this!) in that either of them would have given Robin Williams's character from Moscow on the Hudson a seizure -- mind boggling sizes in one, mind-boggling variety in the other.
I just bought a silk handbag with cookies at BA Saturday, to give a friend.
By TigerHawk, at
Mon Dec 13, 09:55:00 AM:
I was there Saturday as well! I wonder if we crossed paths without knowing it...
