Spain Regains Position of Second Largest Olive Oil Exporter to the U.S.

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Spanish olive oil exports to the United States increased by 37.5 per­cent in the first half of 2021, accord­ing to data from the Interprofessional Association of Spanish Olive Oil.

Between January and June, olive oil ship­ments from Spain to the U.S. reached 57,402 tons. Over the same period, the U.S. imported 207,522 tons, an increase of slightly more than one per­cent com­pared with the same period last year.

Pedro Barato, the pres­i­dent of the Interprofessional, said that these fig­ures indi­cate that Spain is well on its way to regain­ing its lead­ing posi­tion in the U.S. olive oil mar­ket after the 25-per­cent tar­iff imposed on a vari­ety of agri­cul­tural and man­u­fac­tur­ing goods from France, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom was tem­porar­ily sus­pended in March and per­ma­nently removed in June.

“We have con­tin­ued to bet on the North American con­sumer,” Barato said. ​“Now, we get our reward, to repo­si­tion our­selves as lead­ers in the coun­try that is the third-largest con­sumer of olive oils with about 400,000 tons a year.”

In the first half of 2021, Spanish olive oil imports made up about 28 per­cent of all olive oil ship­ments to the U.S., an increase of six per­cent com­pared with the same period last year.

Spain has now over­taken Tunisia as the sec­ond-largest olive oil exporter to the U.S. but still remains behind Italy.

Bottled olive oil exports to the U.S. fell by 80 per­cent in 2020 com­pared with 2019 as a result of the tar­iffs, which were imposed by the admin­is­tra­tion of for­mer President Donald J. Trump over the decades-long dis­pute between the U.S. and European Union over ille­gal sub­si­dies to air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ers Boeing and Airbus.

Producers from Andalusia, Spain’s largest olive oil-pro­duc­ing region by a sig­nif­i­cant mar­gin, are also cel­e­brat­ing an excel­lent start to 2021. According to the autonomous community’s provin­cial gov­ern­ment, olive oil exports rose by about 18 per­cent in the first six months of the year.

Due to the con­tin­ued recov­ery of olive oil prices in the region, the value of these exports reached about €1.3 bil­lion.

“[Olive oil] is a pri­mary ref­er­ence for Andalusian exports due to its high qual­ity and con­tin­ues to be the key entry point for many other Andalusian agri-food prod­ucts on the for­eign mar­ket,” said Carmen Crespo, the Andalusian min­is­ter of agri­cul­ture, live­stock, fish­eries and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment.

Daniel Dawson con­tributed to this report.

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