`Olive Council Predicts Increased Olive Oil Production for 2010-11 - Olive Oil Times
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Olive Council Predicts Increased Olive Oil Production for 2010-11

By Daniel Williams
Oct. 11, 2010 11:16 UTC
Summary Summary

The International Olive Council pre­dicts a sig­nif­i­cant increase in olive oil pro­duc­tion world­wide for the next sea­son, with Spain expected to remain the world leader at about 1.4 mil­lion tons. Despite the record-set­ting pro­duc­tion lev­els, con­cerns are grow­ing among inter­na­tional olive grow­ers due to declin­ing prices, although there is still a rel­a­tive equi­lib­rium between sup­ply and demand, with increased con­sump­tion in coun­tries like the United States.

According to esti­mates from the International Olive Council, olive oil pro­duc­tion around the world is pre­dicted to increase sig­nif­i­cantly in the next sea­sonal cam­paign.

The IOC pre­dicts that world leader Spain will likely stay at about 1.4 mil­lion tons of olive oil next sea­son, although it cau­tions that the final fig­ure could turn out to be higher pend­ing favor­able weather con­di­tions. This fig­ure was announced by exec­u­tive direc­tor of the IOC, Mohammed Ouhmad Sbitri, at the inau­gu­ra­tion of the 8th Expert’s Olive Oil Tasting Course which took place in Jaén, Spain.

In addi­tion to the 1.4 mil­lion tons of Spanish olive oil pre­dicted to be pro­duced, there is still a sig­nif­i­cant amount of olive oil that remains shored up in ware­houses in an effort to raise world prices by lim­it­ing sup­ply. Industry experts pre­dict this fig­ure to be around 200,000 tons at the min­i­mum.

Mohammed Ouhmad Sbitri | Olive Oil Times
Sbitri

The IOC report pre­dicts sim­i­lar increases in olive oil pro­duc­tion else­where: Greece is pre­dicted to pro­duce some 336,000 tons in the upcom­ing cam­paign, a 5% increase from last sea­son, 9,000 tons for Israel, (157% increase), 60,000 tons for Algeria (126% increase), Iran some 8,000 tons, (50% increase), Albania to reach 7,000 tons, (40% increase), Syria some 193,500 tons, (29% increase), Turkey 160,000 tons, (9% increase), and 15,500 tons for Argentina, which equates to a 9% jump in pro­duc­tion.

The only coun­try set to decrease pro­duc­tion is Tunisia, whose 120,000 tons amounts to a 20% drop in pro­duc­tion from last season’s fig­ures. With respect to other inter­na­tional pro­duc­ers, Mr. Sbitri with­held pre­dic­tions since these esti­mates would be less pre­cise and are still under­go­ing eval­u­a­tion.

These record-set­ting lev­els of pro­duc­tion are a grow­ing con­cern among inter­na­tional olive grow­ers because since January 2005, as global out­put of olive oil has con­tin­ued to soar, world­wide farm-gate prices have con­tin­ued to decline.

Mr. Sbitri explained that the global demand for olive oil has steadily increased in tan­dem with these increases in pro­duc­tion. He believes that there still exists a rel­a­tive equi­lib­rium between world­wide sup­ply and demand, which he attrib­utes to pro­mo­tional and mar­ket­ing efforts that are tak­ing place in coun­tries with his­tor­i­cally low lev­els of olive oil con­sump­tion such as Russia and India.

Furthermore, Mr. Sbitri points out that American con­sump­tion of olive oil has increased steadily in the past decade, reach­ing 260,000 tons per year. He pre­dicts the United States to show a sim­i­lar con­sump­tion trend in the future with increases of 4,000 to 6,000 tons of olive oil annu­ally.

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