"Jewels of the Adriatic": four countries choose to compete on quality, not volume

Put together, the olive groves of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro produce barely half a percent of the world's olive oil. Producers in those four countries now propose to stop competing on volume and build a shared quality brand instead: "Jewels of the Adriatic."

The proposal was put forward at the first international panel of Eastern Adriatic countries, held during the inaugural Herz Olive Fest in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The festival was held under the patronage of Borjana Krišto, chairwoman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The numbers

No volume, but plenty of awards

The figures make the region's small scale plain. In an average year Croatia produces 3,500 to 4,000 tonnes, Slovenia around 500 tonnes and Montenegro several hundred. Despite the rapid expansion of olive growing in Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina produces only about 200 to 300 tonnes. Taken together, the four are close to a single day of Spanish output.

In international competition the picture inverts. At the most recent NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, Croatia finished second worldwide in total awards, while Bosnia and Herzegovina, with 16 awards, and Montenegro, with 9, recorded their best results to date.

Marko Ivanković, director of the Federal Agromediterranean Institute in Mostar, sums the region up in one line: "Our oils, from northern Istria to southern Ulcinj, regularly rank among the best in the world." He lists the common ground too: karst, abundant sunshine, the harsh bora wind and a tradition stretching back thousands of years.

What the brand would be — and would not

The name proposed at the panel is "Jewels of the Adriatic," and it rests on one condition: every participating product would continue to carry a clear indication of its country of origin. The aim is not to erase national identities but to establish a recognisable regional framework that gives producers from small countries visibility in international markets.

Rok Babič, of the Institute for Olive Growing at the Science and Research Centre in Koper, puts the sequence the other way round: "Before choosing a name, we have to ask whom we want to reach, what those people value and why the oils of the Eastern Adriatic should interest them."

His definition of the brand goes beyond the product: "We are not selling a guest only a bottle of oil, but a landscape, people, varieties, tradition, knowledge and the experience of a particular place."

The panel's shared conclusion is clear: an umbrella brand can carry small countries into larger markets — but only if it is backed by clear and verifiable quality standards. As Babič put it, the name "could be an excellent starting point, but its real value would come from outstanding quality, common rules and the authentic stories of the people who produce these oils."

Who was at the table

The composition of the panel shows the proposal is more than an association-level wish. It was moderated by Nedjeljko Jusup. Croatia was represented by Nebojša Jerković, a consultant and olive oil specialist from the Neretva Valley who also sits on the management board of Croatia's National Common Agricultural Policy Network. Slovenia was represented by the young researchers Rok Babič and Karlo Kopjar from the Koper institute; Montenegro by Ivan Ilić, president of the Boka Olive Growers Association, and Ćazim Alković, president of the Bar Olive Growers Association and Montenegro's representative to the International Olive Council in Madrid.

The panel's central argument follows from that line-up: taken individually, these countries have neither the production volumes nor the marketing budgets to be visible in major global markets. What they can offer together is a cluster large producers find difficult to replicate — an extraordinary diversity of indigenous varieties, thousands of years of tradition and a distinctive karst landscape.

Pests do not recognise borders

The panel's second agenda was technical. Ivanković says climate change is no longer theoretical: drought increasingly affects the groves, extreme heat can persist from flowering through ripening and harvest, and new pests are emerging that do not recognise national borders.

That last point ties the shared brand to a technical necessity: if pests ignore borders, monitoring and control cannot respect them either. The panel also discussed agricultural drones and smart technologies for plant protection, olive oil agritourism, and the creation of a single cross-border Trans-Adriatic Olive Oil Route.

Seen from Türkiye

The proposal points to a familiar gap. Türkiye holds a large number of geographical indication registrations for olives and olive oil — but a registration is a legal label, not a story told in the market. We measured what twenty-five registrations are actually doing separately: the number of registrations rises without the number of names consumers recognise rising with it.

That is exactly where the Adriatic proposal is interesting. The four countries are building common rules and a common narrative ahead of the label; origin is not lost but carried under the umbrella. The equivalent question here is this: with Ayvalık, Milas, Mut, North Aegean and the rest each registered separately, is there any recognisable framework that presents all of them together in export markets?

What to watch

Two things will decide whether the proposal amounts to more than a name: whether a verifiable quality standard is actually written, and whether the four countries run it through a joint institution or leave it at association level. Without a standard, an umbrella brand is a slogan standing next to a list of awards.