`Council Establishes Olive Oil Price 'Observatory' - Olive Oil Times
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Council Establishes Olive Oil Price 'Observatory'

By Julie Butler
Sep. 12, 2012 12:48 UTC

Improved track­ing of olive oil prices and the pro­vi­sion of mar­ket fore­casts and analy­sis are among the goals for a new ​‘busi­ness intel­li­gence obser­va­tory’ being set up by the International Olive Council.

To be known as the Economy Watch, it will be geared towards mon­i­tor­ing the eco­nomic sit­u­a­tion ​“in order to antic­i­pate devel­op­ments,” ana­lyze the under­ly­ing causes of pos­si­ble mar­ket crises or dis­rup­tions and per­form eval­u­a­tions and sim­u­la­tions.

It will also pro­duce trend reports and mar­ket updates, pro­vide a ​“warn­ing sys­tem,” and share its out­put via con­fer­ences and sem­i­nars, the IOC said in its August mar­ket newslet­ter. A group of experts con­vened by the IOC will meet on September 25 to guide the cre­ation of the obser­va­tory.

And the IOC also wants to improve the cal­i­bre of sta­tis­tics for the sec­tor. Its work­ing group on this issue will hold a third meet­ing on September 24 to deal with mat­ters includ­ing dif­fer­ences in for­eign trade data, the lat­est data on olive crop area trends, growth prospects and pro­ducer prices, and a new olive and olive oil data­base aimed at ​“speed­ing up and enhanc­ing the inter­nal sta­tis­ti­cal pro­cess­ing capa­bil­i­ties of the (IOC) Executive Secretariat.”

Producer prices

The need for bet­ter under­stand­ing of pric­ing trends in the olive oil sec­tor is per­haps illus­trated in the con­text of the recent surge in pro­ducer prices in Spain, which many attribute largely to drought severely reduc­ing the cur­rent olive crop.

But the IOC was more cau­tious, not­ing that while the ​“most com­mon expla­na­tion would be that crops are expected to be smaller due to the harsh drought of recent months…we must remem­ber that prices have been very low in Spain through the last two crop years. This increase brings them up to the level of November 2009.”

Extra vir­gin olive oil prices reached €2.19/kg in Spain in the last week of August — up 14 per­cent com­pared with the same period last sea­son ear­lier, it said.

EVOO prices took longer to start ris­ing in Italy. Though aver­ag­ing €2.85/kg in the first week of September — up 47 cents on the month before — they are still down 18 per­cent sea­son-on-sea­son.

The lat­est price given for Greece was from mid-July and at €1.82/kg was 11 per­cent down on last sea­son.

World olive oil and table olive mar­ket

Olive oil and olive pomace oil imports into the United States con­tinue to grow and are up 4 per­cent for the first nine months of the 2011/12 sea­son (October-June) com­pared to the same period last sea­son. Spain gained mar­ket share and Italy lost a lit­tle in this mar­ket, the world’s biggest beyond the com­bined EU/27 coun­tries.

The US imported 23,642 tons of olive oil in June, com­pared to just 3922 for China, but growth was more dra­matic in the lat­ter with ship­ments up by a quar­ter.

Imports are up 14 per­cent in Japan, 10 per­cent in Brazil — where later this month the IOC will launch a cam­paign to pro­mote olive and olive oil con­sump­tion — and 8 per­cent in Russia, but down 9 per­cent in Canada and 5 per­cent in Australia.

Imports into the European Union were up 2 per­cent for the first eight months of 2010/11, ​“which comes as a sur­prise given the excep­tion­ally high level of EU pro­duc­tion in 2011/12, and a decrease in intra-EU/27 imports (-3 per­cent)” the IOC said.


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