Shawn's Blog — Quality

I took some grief about my post on August 9th, among other things being accused of doing "marketing" which sort of perplexed me.  I did not mention our products, I did not make any comparisons of anything we do to anyone else, nor are we really a competitor of Deo Leo as we could only hope to be operating on that scale and we don't operate in that market.  While completely unfounded, it did serve to make me think more about this topic. As much as I deplore lawsuits, there may be some good coming out of them in forcing everyone to...

I have been following, at some remove, the steady flow of lawsuits in the olive oil industry, not in small part through The Olive Oil Times but also through other media. It is really a staggering lineup including so many of the giants like Deoleo, Filippo Berio, Safeway Inc., Capatriti (Kangadis), and the most recent additions to the list, J.M. Smucker Co./Transnational Foods Inc. Something that caught my attention in these costly mudslinging exercises, however, were some of the statements made by Deoleo CEO Pierluigi Tosato as reported in Just-Food (7/13/18) and The Olive Oil Times (7/11/18). Mr. Tosato makes...

When I got into this business I had visions of sunset strolls through the orchard on warm summer evenings and enjoying a glass of wine or dining al fresco with a beautiful view over the orchard. It never occurred to me that as an added bonus I'd become a connoisseur of regulatory inspections. I referenced regulation in an earlier post and some of the numerous regulatory agencies and paperwork we have to deal with. Apparently that was a harbinger of things to come as 3 days later, we got a surprise inspection from the F.D.A., which is a somewhat infrequent...

One of the questions we get asked most often from potential new customers is what makes The Olive Oil Source different from our competitors. For me, what makes us different is what we are not. Virtually all of our competitors are people who have gotten into this business as merchants and bring a sales and marketing background to their businesses. For better or worse, we don't come from that background nor do we bring that mentality to the business. A perfect example of this is some of the E.V.O.O.s we're offering this year. Our Ascolano and Mission are coming from an...

Welcome to my blog. My name is Shawn Addison and I am the owner of The Olive Oil Source. I decided it would be a good idea to share some of what I do on a day to day basis. I want to show our customers the importance we place on quality in our business and why we are qualified to make the decisions we do. I don't want to bore you with an entire resume so here are some of the highlights of my background as they pertain to this business. Going way, way back, I have a masters from...