`Turkey Fears Backlash in Local and Foreign Markets with Higher Prices - Olive Oil Times

Turkey Fears Backlash in Local and Foreign Markets with Higher Prices

By Isabel Putinja
Dec. 11, 2014 09:35 UTC

Like many European coun­tries, this year’s olive har­vest in Turkey is not meet­ing expec­ta­tions, reports the Turkish daily Hürriyet.

Over the past month the whole­sale price of extra vir­gin olive oil rose from 7.5 to 10 Turkish Lira ($3.32 to $4.42). Some Turkish olive pro­duc­ers are wait­ing before part­ing with their crop, hop­ing prices will rise fur­ther and they can cash in on high inter­na­tional demand for olive oil fol­low­ing dev­as­tat­ing har­vests in Italy and Spain.
See Also:Complete Coverage of the 2014 Harvest
Meanwhile, if the retail price climbs about 20 Lira, there are fears that con­sumers may stay away from the prod­uct, accord­ing to Cahit Çetin of Taris, an olive and olive oil coop­er­a­tive. He added that prices in Turkey are influ­enced by the Spanish and Italian mar­kets, where record low crops are push­ing up the price of olive oil, and that even though the olive har­vest is still in progress in Turkey, high demand has dri­ven the price up.

Taris Cooperative President Cahit Çetin

According to the lat­est IOC esti­mates, Turkey is expected to pro­duce 190,000 tons of olive oil this year.

The head of the Union of Aegean Olive and Olive Oil Exporters, Gürkan Renkilağ, warned that Turkey risks los­ing for­eign mar­kets for its olive oil because cur­rent prices, at about 1 Euro higher than other mar­kets, are not favor­able for exports. He appealed to the min­istry of agri­cul­ture to dou­ble gov­ern­ment sup­port to avoid los­ing mar­kets in the US, China, Japan and Saudi Arabia.


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