10th Olive Oil and Table Olive Congress

Ten (10) years ago, I had the opportunity to organize the 1st Festival of Olive Oil and Table Olives, along with the members that constitute to the Scientific Committee of the European Organization for Strategy Planning, focusing on making the festival the greatest Olive Oil and Table Olives Mediterranean event. Our primary goal was to raise national awareness of olives and olive oil, the most valuable and widespread agricultural products of Greece, and the festival has now become an annual tradition. With these events, we aimed to bring together Greek farmers, agricultural machinery manufacturers, olive oil production plants, olive oil brands and academics. Thus, we aimed to foster a more robust integration and development of ancient product knowledge passed to farmers through generations with technology and science. Our ancient civilization places great importance on knowledge and science, and their intertwined integration. Aristotle the great philosopher and scientist believed that: "Science is a wealth in good times, a refuge and a guide in bad times." With this in mind, we organized parallel scientific congresses during these festivals, aimed to bring together all stakeholders working on olives and olive oil-farmers, industry as well as, distinguished scientists, and government officials. Thus, we always wanted to have the wealth of good times and the guidance of bad times with our people.

This year, we organized the 10th Olive Oil and Table Olive Festival and Congress in Kalamata, from May 31st to June1st, 2025, with the participation from all our stakeholders. The festival hosted a number of international participants and speakers which gave us great hope for the future.

I am proud to announce that, starting with the 10th Congress, we have begun collaborating with Records of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, an ACG Publications journal. This special issue, which publishes the abstracts of the 10th Olive Oil and Table Olive important Congress, was the reason for the dissemination of high-quality papers to all global scientific media. Our goal is to continue to grow and progress. With more international participants, one of our goals is to gain a significant place in global olive production, industry, application, and scientific studies, especially in Mediterranean olives. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the editors of ACG Publications and Records of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

Our big challenge is to create a more liable, more peaceful, more productive, and more scientific world in every aspect. This can be achieved with olives and olive oil, symbols of peace and prosperity.