Turkey Seeks Greater Returns From Olive Oil Expansion

Summary

Turkey’s olive sec­tor has sig­nif­i­cantly expanded in the past two decades due to gov­ern­ment poli­cies, with the num­ber of olive trees nearly dou­bling to about 200 mil­lion today. Despite this growth, chal­lenges remain, such as the need to strengthen the brand­ing and global posi­tion­ing of Turkish olive oil to increase its value and com­pet­i­tive­ness in inter­na­tional mar­kets. Initiatives like the ​“OlivetoLive” UR-GE project are being launched to boost exports and improve the indus­try’s qual­ity, trace­abil­ity, and brand­ing efforts.

Fueled by gov­ern­ment poli­cies that encour­aged the plant­ing of new groves, Turkey’s olive sec­tor has expanded dra­mat­i­cally over the past two decades.

The num­ber of olive trees in the coun­try has nearly dou­bled, from about 100 mil­lion in the early 2000s to roughly 200 mil­lion today. As a result, Turkey recorded an unprece­dented yield of about 475,000 met­ric tons of olive oil in the pre­vi­ous 2024/25 har­vest sea­son.

The expan­sion has also been rec­og­nized inter­na­tion­ally. Jaime Lillo López, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the International Olive Council, praised Turkey for estab­lish­ing itself among the world’s most sig­nif­i­cant pro­duc­ers.

“Looking at the data from the last five sea­sons (2020 – 2025), Turkey seems to have con­sol­i­dated its posi­tion as the world’s sec­ond-largest pro­ducer of olive oil and table olives,” Lillo told Anadolu Agency in January.

“Turkey already makes a great con­tri­bu­tion to the olive com­mu­nity,” he added.

But the rapid growth in pro­duc­tion has also cre­ated a chal­lenge. Large quan­ti­ties of Turkish olive oil con­tinue to be exported in bulk or stored in ware­houses across the coun­try, lim­it­ing the value cap­tured by domes­tic pro­duc­ers.

In other words, sup­ply has grown faster than the brand value of Turkish olive oil.

Nilufer Koray, direc­tor of sales oper­a­tions at Gaia Oliva, a pro­ducer and exporter in Manisa, said Turkey has invested heav­ily in new groves and mod­ern milling tech­nol­ogy over the last two decades.

“As a result, the num­ber of olive trees has grown to around 200 mil­lion, and this expan­sion has also encour­aged pro­duc­ers to focus more on qual­ity, trace­abil­ity and sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion,” Koray told Olive Oil Times.

“However, a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of Turkish olive oil is still exported in bulk and later bot­tled under other coun­tries’ brands,” he added.

Koray said the next step for the sec­tor is to strengthen the pres­ence of Turkish olive oil in inter­na­tional mar­kets under domes­tic labels.

“Our goal today is not only to pro­duce more olive oil, but to share the qual­ity, iden­tity and her­itage of Turkish olive oil with the world,” he said.

In that con­text, the sec­tor is actively explor­ing new ways to improve the brand­ing and global posi­tion­ing of Turkish olive oil.

EZZIB, the Aegean Olive and Olive Oil Exporters’ Association, has launched the ​“OlivetoLive” UR-GE project, a three-year ini­tia­tive aimed at boost­ing the com­pet­i­tive­ness and exports of Turkish olive oil.

Association chair Mehmet Emre Uygun said the ini­tia­tive includes train­ing and con­sul­tancy for exporters, par­tic­i­pa­tion in inter­na­tional trade shows and tar­geted mar­ket­ing guid­ance designed to increase over­seas sales.

Uygun also said the Turkish olive oil sec­tor ​“lost its com­pet­i­tive­ness when incor­rect deci­sions made regard­ing our sec­tor over the last three years coin­cided with the dis­in­fla­tion process in Turkey.”

“We entered the 2025/26 sea­son in November. In the first month, our olive oil exports plum­meted by 80 per­cent, falling from 8,636 tons to 1,701 tons,” he added. ​“In other words, our exports have come to a stand­still.”

In Antalya, an impor­tant olive-grow­ing area in the country’s south­west, a work­shop orga­nized by the Antalya Commodity Exchange and the provin­cial direc­torates of Agriculture and Forestry and Culture and Tourism exam­ined ways to pro­mote the region’s olive oil indus­try.

The work­shop report said Antalya’s strong pro­duc­tion poten­tial alone is not enough to increase the value of the local olive oil sec­tor. It out­lined 30 strate­gic rec­om­men­da­tions for 2026 to 2035 to strengthen the indus­try and expand exports.

Among its con­clu­sions, the report said improve­ments in qual­ity, trace­abil­ity, brand­ing and tourism are needed to cre­ate new momen­tum for Antalya olive oil.

“There is a gen­eral con­sen­sus that Antalya could achieve a stronger posi­tion in olive oil pro­duc­tion if a qual­ity-focused trans­for­ma­tion frame­work cov­er­ing the period 2026 to 2035 is devel­oped,” the report stated.

Turkish pro­duc­ers have also voiced con­cern about the value lost each year when large vol­umes of oil are exported in bulk or remain idle in stor­age.

Farmer Ercan Dalkılıç from Akhisar in Manisa province said Turkey has yet to develop strong brand­ing for its olive oil.

“Approximately 40 per­cent of the olive oil pro­duced in Turkey each year is exported in bulk, mainly to Spain, but also to Italy, France and Greece,” Dalkılıç said.

“Because we haven’t been able to cre­ate a strong brand­ing for olive oil, we are unable to add value to the coun­try. Although steps have been taken in this direc­tion in recent years, I believe the gov­ern­ment should pro­vide more assis­tance in this area.”

Dalkılıç also said that pro­longed stor­age in ware­houses can degrade oil qual­ity because many pro­duc­ers lack proper stor­age facil­i­ties.

“As a result, it is safe to say that tons of olive oil lose their qual­ity over time,” he said.

He also ques­tioned the level of trust some Turkish con­sumers place in domes­tic olive oil brands.

“Lately, we’ve seen peo­ple import­ing and con­sum­ing olive oil from other coun­tries,” he said. ​“They can’t trust the brands in our coun­try. However, they also need to know that some of that oil is actu­ally of Turkish ori­gin.”

“Turkey can be a world giant in olive oil and we can spread this pros­per­ity to the base,” he con­cluded. ​“This depends on farm­ers com­ing together and sit­ting at the table on equal terms with other stake­hold­ers in the sec­tor.”