Welcome to Olive Oil of the World

Hello and welcome to Olive Oil of the World ! Our mission is to teach you about the world of olive oil.

We are a family owned business of Olive Oil Experts and Chefs dedicated to bringing you real farm-to-bottle olive oil , artisan crafted food products and vinegar from all over the globe. 

I am Ersilia Moreno. For years I have been buying and trying extra virgin olive oil out of a natural born passion to eat and prepare delicious, healthy meals by personally sourcing the ingredients.  My ancestral roots trace back to 13th century Italy and olive oil has been a central ingredient in our day to day cooking.  Back in the 1960’s, well before the medical community started espousing the virtues and health benefits of the key ingredient of the Mediterranean diet,  my mother was cooking with a brand of extra virgin olive oil from Sicily that we could only find at Di Paolo’s in New York’s Little Italy.

I grew up in a family that cherished meals and my two wonderful parents made sure that we did not become peanut butter and jelly or macaroni and cheese kids even if everyone else was eating it. My mother was an amazing cook and she gives credit back to my namesake, my paternal grandmother Ersilia, for exposing her to all of the wonderful Italian ingredients New York City offered that had not yet arrived in her home town of Pittsburgh. We ate fresh from the garden and used olive oil for everything. It made the most simple slice of tomato with a piece of basil on top taste so deliciously special.

My college years in the early 80’s brought me to Europe and the Middle East where I first was exposed to olive oils from different countries and different regions within those countries. Subsequent trips back to Italy in the 1990’s (when you could still carry on liquids) included a requisite purchase of two 5-liter tins of olive oil from Umbria because it was impossible to find here.

Whenever possible I would buy olive oil from as many different countries as possible just to see what they tasted like. FINDING those oils was a huge problem. It would only be by chance that I might come across a Greek olive oil let alone a Moroccan olive oil, a French olive oil or one from California.

I wanted to learn about olive oil so, during the olive harvest in 2008, I attended a 2 day one- on- one course studying with a certified olive oil sommelier and well known competition judge in Italy.  Olive Oil of the World began as a hobby running a stand once a week at the local farmer’s market. Two years later I decided to quit my day job and closed my accounting practice to devote myself to the world of olive oil.  My son Chef Rasheed Shihada, a graduate of the Florida Culinary Institute, joined me in 2011 as Executive Chef and Director of Sales.  Together we are here to help you choose the olive oils that best suit your palette and discuss with you how to best use these different Olive Oils of the World for cooking.

Supermarkets line their shelves with the exotic branded olive oils you see today. They all basically taste the same because they are blends of olive oils from various different countries with a fancy bottle and a fancy name. There are also olive oil tasting bars springing up that tout their olive oils as artisan olive oils  when in fact they are nothing more than generic olive oils purchased in bulk and dispensed out of stainless steel containers into private labeled bottles. Our research discovered that one of the main suppliers to these establishments imports more than 1,000,000 gallons per year. Only large commercial producers are able to supply in such quantity.

We are true purveyors and personally source every product we sell and do not use 3rd parties. We visit the farms and olive mills and establish a personal relationship with each of our suppliers. They are true  farmers and artisans. They grow and produce their products using only organic and sustainable growing practices.  We only do business with those who cultivate using organic methods and who want to proudly display their name on the label.

Come and allow us to share our passion with you for what we know to be one of nature’s most perfect and healthy foods.  To truly open up the amazing world of olive oil to you we have set our sights to create what we have been looking for all these years : one place devoted to olive oil from every country that produces it .  Our goal is to have 1 extra virgin olive oil from each the 26+ countries that produce it , 1 from each of the 16 olive oil producing regions of Italy, and 1 from each of the 3 states in the USA.  And while we are at it, we want to share with you other artisan crafted foods and nature’s perfect partner for olive oil : vinegar. So as they would say among the 26+ countries that produce this food of the God’s : benvenuti, ahlan wa salan, bienvenidos, bienvenue, galos orisate, bruchim habayim, hos geldiniz, dobro došli, bem-vindo, khosh aamadid, welcome! We promise you an amazing experience…