For a decade, Laconiko extra virgin olive oils from Greece have been winning annual awards at the prestigious NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, the world’s largest olive oil contest. Its ten years of awards make Laconiko the most consistently awarded Greek olive oil at this competition. The company is also a top winner at contests around the world.
This is perfect for Americans who love olive oil, since Laconiko has its headquarters in the USA. The Laconiko team uses olives grown with great care on the Pierrakos family estate in Laconia, Peloponnese, Greece, to make the extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) and flavored olive oil they ship to their American warehouse in the cold winter months, so heat cannot threaten its quality. Then Laconiko ships its award-winning products to American customers from their own temperature-controlled warehouses in the US.
“One of the most awarded Greek brands in the world is on your doorstep,” explains Laconiko co-owner Diamantis Pierrakos; “it’s right here, so you don’t need to order it from Greece! This fresh product that we made with our hands is next door. We pay so much attention to protecting this product that was made from the heart in order to make sure that when you receive it, it’s as fresh as possible.”
Diamantis is “overjoyed to announce that ALL 3 of our Estate Olive Oils SWEPT the NYIOOC competition with 3 GOLD AWARDS” in 2023. Moreover, the brand new extra healthy high phenolic Laconiko Zoi EVOO won a gold award at the NYIOOC the same season it was first produced and was recognized as the BEST KALAMON VARIETAL in the EVOO World Rankings for 2023 (under Chondrolia – Kalamon)!
This important distinction for olive oil quality emphasizes that Laconiko can combine wonderful flavor with impressive health benefits. As Diamantis explains, this was “a great start for our new limited production olive oil, whose name, Zoi, means ‘Life’ in Greek, and it helps show how special this olive oil really is. It is an oleocanthal-rich high phenolic extra virgin olive oil, made from a specially selected early harvest of Kalamon variety olives.”
Laconiko Extra Virgin Olive Oil’s ten years of awards at the NYIOOC include six consecutive years of gold prizes. Laconiko Olio Nuovo, the family business’s more intense early harvest EVOO, has also had great success at the New York competition.
“We can’t compete in every competition,” Laconiko co-owner Dino Pierrakos reports, but the NYIOOC is “such a big competition” that has been “extremely important for us from our very beginning,” providing “significant help in our learning process as we grew and improved our production.” Dino and his brother paid careful attention to all the judges’ comments, using them to learn what changes they needed to make during olive cultivation and olive oil production.
In addition, NYIOOC prizes brought them valuable recognition. So this competition has “played a significant role,” Dino believes, in helping to bring them “to where we are today”: one of the most highly awarded olive oil companies in the world. Diamantis and Dino are grateful to the judges who have taught them so much, and to all the customers and team members that make up the extended Laconiko family, supporting their hard work and its successful results.
In addition to repeated triumphs in New York, Laconiko’s extra virgin olive oils have captured major prizes at other international olive oil competitions across the globe, earning impressive worldwide rankings year after year. For example, in 2020 Laconiko was ranked the second most successful olive oil company in the world by EVOO World Ranking (WR), as well as the Best Society from Greece, with 85 awards from 12 competitions in just one year. The two Laconiko estate extra virgin olive oils produced that year were both listed among the Top 10 Koroneiki monovarietal extra virgin olive oils globally.
In 2021 Laconiko’s two estate EVOOs were both ranked among the Top 50 olive oils in the world, the Top 10 olive oils in Greece, and the four best Koroneiki varietals in the world, in the EVOO WR. In 2022 the two Laconiko EVOOs ranked in the world’s Top 100, with one of them among the five best Greek EVOOs and Top 5 Koroneiki variety EVOOs worldwide. And in 2023, EVOO WR listed all three of Laconiko’s EVOOs among the Top 100 in the world, with all three of their estate olive oils also ranking in the 10 best olive oils from Greece. Their two Koroneiki EVOOs appeared among the Top 5 Koroneikis, and their Kalamon EVOO was listed as the best Chondrolia - Kalamon internationally.
In addition, the flavored olive oils this family business makes using their award-winning EVOOs have been some of the highest-ranked flavored oils in the world for years. For example, in 2023 the EVOO WR listed Laconiko among the world’s two best companies for flavored olive oils, with 6 of the Top 15 flavored olive oils worldwide created by Laconiko.
Diamantis Pierrakos considers his company’s EVOOs’ high rankings a “reflection of the hard work and exhausting determination to be better” that characterize his team. He believes Laconiko is unusual in being less a company than an extended “family unit; we work like one, and we are all committed and share the same goal, quality!”
The Laconiko team deeply appreciates their customers as well. “Your love, trust and support are our biggest inspiration,” Diamantis emphasized. “It has inspired us to offer you the absolute best version of ourselves, as reflected in the quality of our olive oil. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you!”
This is a sponsored post; Laconiko is a Major Sponsor of greekliquidgold.com. Thanks to Laconiko for the photos that appear with this article.
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