The Science Behind Your Salad

^{Crossing the globe to discover how the best ingredients that end up on our tables are grown}

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Latest Episode: The Impact of Climate Change on Olives

This episode of The Science Behind Your Salad from BASF visits Spain, Portugal and Egypt in a quest to discover how olive crops will be affected by climate change. Jane Craigie meets the farmers busily harvesting their crops, ready to take them off to the mill to be pressed into delicious golden olive oil.
The main focus of the olive growing industry encircles the Mediterranean. Olives favour warm conditions, but in some areas the climate is warming. Arid regions of Andalusia are becoming drier, and so farmers rely more and more on irrigation.
Jane meets farmers working hard to ensure their water goes a long way and they get the best from the scarce supply. She also meets farmers reinvigorating the olive industry in Egypt, with the help of modern farming methods and crop treatments, plus in Portugal she learns how the circularity of the farming operation, ensuring nothing is wasted, is becoming normal practice.
Meanwhile she talks to Johnny Madge, internationally known olive oil expert to find out what the future holds for a crop that faces challenges from a volatile climate.

Our guest: Johnny Madge

In 1982 Johnny saw, smelled and tasted some olive oil that had just been made and fell in love with this magical ingredient. As a child his Greek-speaking grandmother cooked a lot of Greek food in our house and, of course, for that she needed olive oil. But in the 60s in the UK you could only buy it in the pharmacy - people were putting it in their ears. Olive oil has come a long way since. Thanks to technology and hygiene olive oil is getting better and better every day with intense, complex aromas and flavours that are almost as elaborate as those you can find in wine. So in 1982 Johnny's addiction began and in 1986 I saw a house surrounded by olive trees just north of Rome. Before buying the house I bought a bottle of local oil and, because it seemed good, he bought the house. Later Johnny opened an olive oil bar/art gallery and soon he was judging olive oil for Slow Food. Later, in 2014 he started tasting in the Olive Japan competition. Since then he has judged in International Olive Oil Competitions in London, Athena (Greece), Berlin, Carthage (Tunisia) and Australian Olive.
Being involved in olive oil means that Johnny has visited countless oil producers in Italy (where I used to live), Spain (where I now live), Morocco, Tunisia, Greece, France, Japan and Turkey. He loves doing this because he learns about olive production but also about olive oil production in the olive mills.

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