For the second year in a row, the Scripps College Olive Oil won an award from the Los Angeles International Extra Virgin Olive Oil Competition, beating an impressive field of entries from such countries as France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Slovenia, and Spain.
Judges recently awarded the College’s olive oil a Silver Medal in the “delicate” category, which included 561 entries from 306 producers throughout the northern hemisphere.
“We were thrilled to learn that our olive oil is a medal winner again this year,” says Claire Bridge ’82, a member of the campus’ President’s Advisory Council on Sustainability, which helped organize a fall harvest so that the community would gather the olives. “Scripps is one of only a handful of educational institutions that produce olive oil. Our harvest truly builds community when we gather to pick the olives.”
Scripps harvested its olive trees last November as part of a sustainability movement, sparked by a popular course, “The Politics and Culture of Food,” taught by professor Nancy Neiman Auerbach. The trees are a much-loved fixture on the campus. Once slated for removal due to construction, the olive trees were saved when students organized protests in the late 1960s. They were temporarily removed, boxed, and replanted in their original location.
“This is not just a sustainability initiative. It is also a community engagement project that brings very different people together, and it was purposely designed to unite our community. The women who oversaw this effort had the vision to keep that in mind,” says Sara Estevez Cores ’13, the College’s first sustainable entrepreneurship coordinator fellow, a position that was created from sales of last year’s olive oil.
In addition, Director of Grounds Lola Trafecanty and her crew were instrumental in making sure the fall harvest would run smoothly, Estevez Cores says.
Last year, the Scripps olive oil earned a “Best of Show” award in the domestic, delicate category. Limited quantities are still available. Please click here to purchase a bottle of the award-winning olive oil.