President's Blend: Yudof chooses olive oil

Signed, sealed and soon to be delivered: University of California President Mark Yudof’s own blend of olive oil.

UC Davis already has its own popular olive oil, sold in the campus bookstore and online, with customers including Yudof. The self-supporting UC Davis Olive Center – the only academic center of its kind in North America – is looking to branch out with the UC-wide President’s Blend.

A day before Yudof began his tour of high schools to promote access to a UC education, he visited the UC Davis Olive Center on Sept. 30 to give his official seal of approval to the President’s Blend olive oil.

Accompanied by UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi and leaders of the campus’ Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, Yudof chose from five blends made with olives grown in California. His favorite? A blend 25 percent Frantoio (Italian) olives and the rest Arbequina (Spanish) olives, the most commonly planted olive in California. Nutty? Yes. Pungent? Check. Bitter? No. Yudof also chose a label design with an image of olives, the UC seal in the middle and the words “President’s Blend.”

“I’m really humbled,” said Yudof, who plans to buy bottles of his blend to send to relatives.

The President’s Blend is expected to be available by the winter holidays. The plan is to sell it at all UC campus bookstores in quarter-liter bottles for $12 apiece.

“We’re hoping we can get out to the other campuses and expose them to really good olive oil,” said Dan Flynn, executive director of the UC Davis Olive Center.

In July, the Olive Center garnered international attention with its study that found many imported olive oils sold in California are not “extra virgin” as their premium labels claim they are. The center is doing a second study to confirm the results, UC Davis professor and sensory scientist Jean-Xavier Guinard said.

The center, part of the Robert Mondavi Institute, collaborates across campus and among producers and the community to promote olive and olive oil research and education. Before testing the olive oil blends, Yudof visited a mobile olive mill, enclosed in a custom-built 38-foot trailer. Olive to Bottle owner Thom Curry brought it for the center’s sold-out course for olive oil producers. “It’s basically like making fruit juice,” Curry said. “The fresher, the better with olive oil.”

Yudof, who also toured the Robert Mondavi Institute’s newly completed, environmentally cutting-edge winery, brewery and food-processing complex, noted the economic promise of California’s growing olive oil industry. California produces almost all olive oil made in the United States, although that amounts to just 1 percent of total domestic consumption in the import-dominated market.

“The olives have the potential to be one of the leading crops in the state, with UC Davis being a leader in the industry, just like with wine and almonds,” Yudof said.

Read more and view a slideshow at Dateline UC Davis.

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