One of the current U.S. administration’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission’s goals is to promote healthy eating to help combat obesity and chronic disease. For that reason, Joseph R. Profaci, executive director of the North American Olive Oil Association, suggests that “a bottle of olive oil should be the poster child for the MAHA movement.”
Olive oil is famous for its health benefits and its key role in the Mediterranean Diet, which has been rated U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Diet Overall” for eight years in a row. So why wouldn’t olive oil improve Americans’ health?
There is one possible reason: tariffs. “Because less than 3% of the olive oil consumed in the USA can be produced in the country, American consumers will pay more,” Profaci says, when there are tariffs on imported olive oil. “You can’t just switch to American made olive oil, because there is not enough of it. As a result, many families who are trying to eat healthy food will not be able to afford even the least expensive olive oils.”
American olive oil producers and olive oil tariffs
Visiting Congressional staff members on Capitol Hill in Washington recently, North American Olive Oil Association (NAOOA) members who produce olive oil in the U.S.A. explained that tariffs would help them in the short term by enabling them to raise their prices. However, they added, in the long term such a price increase is not good for anyone, because it will damage the market and deprive people of the ability to buy affordable, accessible olive oil.
Profaci noted that olive oil produced in the United States tends to be high-priced, due to higher costs for land, labor, and resources such as water. Given this, the domestic industry generally focuses on producing higher quality and higher margin products instead of volume. (Many small-scale producers in other parts of the world have similar goals.) American olive oil producers depend on larger importing companies to sell the more affordable brands that help create a market for olive oil in the U.S.A.
Profaci explained that affordable olive oil enables Americans accustomed to buying seed oils to turn to this flavorful, healthier product. These consumers eventually begin to buy higher priced, higher quality products, including those from American olive oil companies.
Profaci does not know what will happen with tariffs on olive oil. But he points out that “we do have working in our favor the Make America Healthy Again agenda,” insofar as that agenda focuses on improving Americans’ wellness through a healthy diet and lifestyle. “To the extent we have proponents in the government now saying seed oils are bad for you, that should inform those who are imposing tariffs that we shouldn’t force people to buy seed oil because they can’t afford olive oil. I don’t subscribe to the idea that seed oils are unhealthy. But I certainly believe olive oil is much healthier.”
Olive oil health benefits for Americans
At a recent Olive Oil World Congress event in Washington, D.C. that was cosponsored by the NAOOA, Dr. Mike Cirigliano of the University of Pennsylvania gave a presentation titled “Health Benefits of Olive Oil: Fighting Obesity, Inflammation, Heart Disease, Dementia and Cancer.” And scientists have shown that olive oil can help with even more health problems than Cirigliano could fit into his title.
“It’s clear,” Profaci told Greek Liquid Gold, “that America’s facing a health crisis driven largely by obesity. We know that consuming olive oil is part of a healthy diet, perhaps a Mediterranean style eating pattern, which results in improved health outcomes across a variety of chronic diseases, and reduces the cost of healthcare. We have members of the MAHA caucus such as Senator Marshall, who is a doctor, who says as much as 70% of our health outcomes are dependent on what we eat and what we do.”
Profaci believes it is clear that tariffs on olive oil would be inconsistent with the goals of improving the American diet that are being discussed under the MAHA agenda. At the Washington event, Profaci cited data from a study showing that “even a 20% increase in adherence to the Mediterranean Diet would save the American healthcare system $20 billion each year.” This makes olive oil a great investment, and many American consumers recognize that.
Awareness of olive oil’s health benefits is probably the main reason the United States has become the second largest olive oil consuming country, right behind Italy. According to the NAOOA, Americans consumed 368,000 tons of olive oil in 2024. In spite of this, only about half of U.S. households use olive oil. So there is still enormous room for growth in the American market.
Initiative for olive oil education for American health
Because the NAOOA continues to emphasize “that olive oil is an essential, healthy ingredient,” as Profaci says, they continue to seek U.S. government support for two initiatives they have been working on for several years: a Research and Promotion Program, and a Standard of Identity petition for olive oil. Profaci reports that the responses to their proposals have been positive.
Why is this important for the American public? Unfortunately, Profaci believes Americans’ understanding of olive oil is on average “very rudimentary and simplistic, and often misinformed by media reports from people who think they’re experts, who really know very little.” To help remedy this lack of knowledge, the NAOOA applied to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) last July for a Research and Promotion Program focused on olive oil.
One successful example of such a USDA-supervised program to promote agricultural products was the “Got Milk?” campaign. In addition, the Avocado Board taught Americans how to eat guacamole, which many had never done. “Now it’s become a part of American culture. That’s our goal, essentially: to have olive oil become a part of American culture. It never has been and still isn’t.”
This type of program would enable the olive oil sector in the U.S.A. to collectively create a plan “to educate consumers about the benefits and uses of olive oil”—the product in general, without reference to any brand or national origin. Olive oil companies would pay for the program at a proposed rate of 8 cents a gallon (except for very small companies). The NAOOA estimates that this would yield an annual budget of 7 or 8 million dollars to promote olive oil. Profaci points out that this could support an American policy “geared toward making Americans healthy again.”
Initiative for clear, accurate olive oil labeling in America
“All olive oil is healthy,” he adds, “but some is healthier than others. So it’s important consumers get what they bargain for.” However, the lack of official nationwide regulations defining olive oil and its grades in the United States makes this challenging. “Since health is the primary driver that brings consumers to olive oil,” Profaci declares, “it’s critical that we have an enforceable and clear standard” to define the healthiest type, extra virgin olive oil, as well as legal definitions of each grade of olive oil.
For this reason, in 2022 the NAOOA, the American Olive Oil Producers’ Association, and the largest olive oil company that is not a member of either association filed a joint petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a Standard of Identity for olive oil in the U.S.A. As Profaci emphasized, this collaboration demonstrates “very broad support from the industry” for legally recognized standards that apply throughout the country. Such standards would help protect consumers from misleading labeling of products, potentially increasing consumer confidence that olive oil can offer them health benefits.
Profaci hopes the MAHA agenda will help move the process along for approval of both a nationwide standard and the creation of the olive oil promotion board, as well as ending tariffs on olive oil.
All businesses, organizations, and competitions involved with Greek olive oil, the Mediterranean diet, and/or agrotourism or food tourism in Greece, as well as others interested in supporting Greeks working in these sectors, are invited to consider the advertising opportunities on the Greek Liquid Gold: Authentic Extra Virgin Olive Oil website. The only wide-ranging English-language site focused on news and information from the Greek olive oil world, it has helped companies reach consumers in more than 220 countries around the globe.
