Slippery Business

Declining domestic consumption and an inability to compete on the international volume market are forcing Lebanon’s olive oil producers to go niche. It’s a nice idea (selling as it does, Lebanon’s ancient olive-oil-producing heritage and a quality attributable to the country’s soil, climate and general environment), but for the $250 million olive oil sector, which accounts for only 0.2% of worldwide production, it is a strategy that is fraught with challenges, not least the need for regulation and quality control. In a local market that is defined by brand fraud and sub standard products and flooded with cheaper oil (often smuggled from Syria), local producers have little incentive to make a high-end product, especially when exports represent only 10% of production. “I don’t see any hope for regulation,” said Ramzi Ghosn, producer of NAY olive oil as well as Massaya wines and arak. “Even if the laws existed, no one