Maltese olive oil was chosen among olive oils from other Mediterranean countries for a meal following an informal meeting of Ministers for Agriculture of the European Union.
The meeting was held in Taormina in September last year and Italian Agriculture Minister Giovanni Alemanno asked Slow Food, an international organisation which describes itself as made up of 'eco-gastronomes', to sample different traditional foods sent by member states and accession countries and set the menu for the ministers' meal.
There among the items on the menu was smoked flounder from Estonia and smoked wild salmon from Ireland, aged artisan gouda from the Netherlands, Iberico ham from Spain and Trappist beer from Belgium.
Sammy Cremona said he was very pleased that Maltese olive oil, his pet subject for the past four years, was chosen from the array of Maltese foods sent and from other olive oils from Europe.
Mr Cremona started pressing olives four years ago, and in the first year pressed eight tonnes of olives that he harvested from his own orchard. The following year he pressed 20 tonnes and decided to purchase a bigger machine, with which last year he pressed 60 tonnes. This year he has pressed 200 tonnes so far and is still at it.
But the hectic days of pressing between one and two tonnes a day from 6 a.m. till 11 p.m. non-stop are behind him. He is now pressing olives twice or three times a week. "I never worked so hard in my life. I lost 12 kilos over the past month!," Mr Cremona said.
The olive harvest season starts in September and goes to mid-December but the peak is from October to the first week of November.
"Many are planting olive trees. Some 150,000 trees have been planted over the past four years. From next year, the harvest will be much bigger than it was this year and I will be unable to cope with the demand for pressing olives after next year," he said.
Mr Cremona said it made a lot of sense to grow olive trees. They needed less maintenance and water than vines and were much more resistant. They could be harvested both for the table as well as for oil and any excess olives remaining could be pressed. They were also very long lived. There are trees that are over 2,000 years old in Malta and an olive tree that is 200 years old is at its best, Mr Cremona said.
Studies are underway in conjunction with the university to look at the DNA of Maltese olive trees and to name a particular variety.
The olive oil pressed from trees grown locally has very low acidity compared to olive oil from countries such as Tunisia, Italy, Greece or Spain.
The machine Mr Cremona has washes the olives and smashes them, turning them into a paste-like mixture which is kneaded like dough for oil to be extracted by centrifugal force.
Mr Cremona said that although the quantity of olives harvested this year was much bigger than last year, the yield of oil was lower because olives had a bigger bone and less flesh this year. This was due to the rains early in the season, and late, as the fruit was ripening. These rains encouraged growth in the bone, rather than in the flesh.
Greece, Sicily and Tunisia had a similar experience.
"Last year, we had 15 to 17 per cent yield. This year we have between eight and 11 per cent. So you can get anywhere between eight and 11 litres from 100 kilos of olives this year," Mr Cremona said.
A large number of people took olives for pressing. Some turn up with a few bags containing around 25 kilos. Others take over 100 kilos at a go. As the machine processes 100 kilos at a time, Mr Cremona groups small lots together while bigger lots are pressed separately.
"People have a choice. They either pay 15 cents per kilo to cover costs of pressing it or give me 20 per cent of the oil produced. Most prefer the latter.
"There is big demand for Maltese olive oil and as it is very lucrative, we have already had unscrupulous people putting on the market olive oil produced from Spanish or other olives and putting Maltese emblems on it to trick consumers that they were buying the real thing," Mr Cremona said.
Maltese olive oil is exported to Germany and will soon be on the shelves of the prestigious up-market Piccadilly Square shop Fortnum and Mason, which boasts of "superb quality and selection - at a price".