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Virginia Olive Oil Mill set a new Guinness World Record on Monday, 26 October 2026, by creating the world's longest olive chain, made up of 51,000 olives, on the Corniche of Marsa Matrouh as part of the Olive Festival the mill is organising in Matrouh Governorate from 25 to 27 October 2026.
The mill officially announced the achievement on its Facebook page, stressing that the record was set with olives grown and harvested by Egyptian hands. It described the record as the culmination of years of work and commitment to quality, and thanked Matrouh Governorate for its support, as well as all the individuals and organisations that contributed to it.
A festival for olive cultivation, processing and trade
The Guinness attempt headlined the festival's second day, taking place in the morning on the Matrouh Corniche, before the celebrations continued at the farm of Major General Idris Taram. The mill's chairman, Dr. Abdullah Yadam, had invited Matrouh's notables, tribal elders, village mayors and sheikhs, olive farmers, and everyone involved in olive cultivation, processing and trade.
The day featured speeches and meetings with foreign delegations from Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Syria and Lebanon, attended by the ambassadors of Algeria and Sri Lanka and the Governor of Alexandria. The festival also hosts an exhibition of the latest equipment, technologies and products in water desalination, olive harvesting and pressing, solar energy, seedlings, fertilisers and pesticides, as well as machinery for tahini production and natural oil pressing.
Educational workshops and prizes for farmers
The festival opened on Sunday, 25 October, with a first day dedicated to educational and extension workshops and lectures covering sensory tasting of olive oil, modern olive cultivation practices, modern harvesting and pressing methods, and the correct ways to store and pickle olives.
The mill offered attending farmers the chance for four of them to win Umrah trips, alongside in-kind prizes for those who helped spread the festival invitation across Matrouh's social media pages. The festival concludes on Tuesday, 27 October.
The record marks a notable boost for the olive sector in Matrouh, one of Egypt's leading olive-growing regions, and puts Egyptian olive oil in the international spotlight.
Source: Virginia Olive Oil Mill