Olive Oil Regulations Come Into Force as Spain Prepares for ‘New Cycle’

Summary

Spain’s Council of Ministers has approved a Royal Decree to mod­ern­ize reg­u­la­tions and improve trans­parency in the olive oil indus­try, with changes to report­ing oblig­a­tions and data col­lec­tion prac­tices. The decree also includes reforms to the Olive Oil Market Information System, requir­ing mills to sub­mit pro­duc­tion dec­la­ra­tions by cat­e­gory and intro­duc­ing sim­pli­fied pro­ce­dures for organic pro­duc­ers and by-prod­uct val­oriza­tion.

Spain’s Council of Ministers offi­cially approved a Royal Decree in July aimed at mod­ern­iz­ing reg­u­la­tion and improv­ing trans­parency within the country’s olive oil and table olive indus­tries.

Proposed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA), the decree intro­duces sig­nif­i­cant changes to report­ing oblig­a­tions, data col­lec­tion prac­tices and com­pli­ance struc­tures affect­ing pro­duc­ers, proces­sors and oper­a­tors through­out the sup­ply chain.

Central to the decree is the reform of the Olive Oil Market Information System (SIMO), jointly admin­is­tered by the min­istry and Spain’s autonomous com­mu­ni­ties. 

The revised SIMO frame­work requires olive mills to sub­mit annual dec­la­ra­tions on pro­duc­tion vol­umes, now dis­ag­gre­gated by cat­e­gory: extra vir­gin, vir­gin and lam­pante. 

These dec­la­ra­tions must be sub­mit­ted before the olive oil is sold into the mar­ket, which offi­cials believe will improve trace­abil­ity.

The new pro­vi­sions also sim­plify reg­u­la­tory pro­ce­dures for organic pro­duc­ers. Monthly dec­la­ra­tions of organic pro­duc­tion will be replaced by a sin­gle annual com­ple­men­tary report, reduc­ing admin­is­tra­tive over­head while pre­serv­ing the accu­racy and reli­a­bil­ity of pro­duc­tion data.

In a sim­i­lar effort to stream­line com­pli­ance, enti­ties involved in the val­oriza­tion of by-prod­ucts such as olive pomace must report monthly activ­ity; how­ever, mills and extrac­tors will no longer be oblig­ated to main­tain detailed des­ti­na­tion records, pro­vided dec­la­ra­tions are sub­mit­ted.

To sim­plify the admin­is­tra­tive process, the decree elim­i­nates out­dated tem­plate forms, with a tran­si­tion to fully dig­i­tized report­ing via exist­ing elec­tronic sys­tems man­aged by national and regional author­i­ties. 

The decree also updates the gov­er­nance roles of the Agencia de Información y Control Alimentarios (AICA) and autonomous com­mu­ni­ties con­cern­ing the cen­sus of reg­is­tered pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties and oper­a­tors, adjust­ments aligned with recent amend­ments to Spain’s Food Chain Law.

The MAPA intro­duced stricter over­sight mech­a­nisms, enhanced trace­abil­ity require­ments, and new qual­ity con­trol stan­dards to ensure that olive oil labeled as ​“extra vir­gin” or ​“pure” gen­uinely meets those cri­te­ria.

The tim­ing of the decree has prompted spec­u­la­tion about its con­nec­tion to recent alle­ga­tions by the pres­i­dent of Dcoop, a coop­er­a­tive with thou­sands of mem­bers.

Antonio Luque accused bot­tlers of mix­ing olive oil with cheaper alter­na­tives such as sun­flower oil, although no evi­dence was pro­vided.

The decree also aligns with broader European Union reforms. Delegated Regulation 2022/2104 and Implementing Regulation 2022/2105, which came into force in late 2022, man­date uni­fied label­ing stan­dards and ana­lyt­i­cal meth­ods across mem­ber states. 

These updates reflect rec­om­men­da­tions from a 2021 study led by Lanfranco Conte, which iden­ti­fied sys­temic weak­nesses in fraud detec­tion and reg­u­la­tory enforce­ment across the E.U.

In par­al­lel with these reg­u­la­tory efforts, the MAPA has pro­posed a mar­ket inter­ven­tion mech­a­nism designed to sta­bi­lize sup­ply and demand. 

“If the fore­casted pro­duc­tion for a cam­paign exceeds 120 per­cent of the aver­age avail­abil­ity over the past six cam­paigns, avail­abil­ity defined as the sum of car­ry­over stock, imports and pro­duc­tion, it would be acti­vated, and the excess vol­ume would be with­drawn from the mar­ket,” Juan Vilar, the chief exec­u­tive of olive oil con­sul­tancy Vilcon, told Olive Oil Times. 

“For the cur­rent cam­paign, this would mean remov­ing approx­i­mately 162,000 tons,” he added.

Vilar acknowl­edged the com­plex­ity of such a move. ​“Intervening in a mar­ket is never sim­ple or ideal,” he said, ​“but it could be ben­e­fi­cial for the entire value chain, pro­vid­ing sta­bil­ity and trans­parency with­out harm­ing mar­gins or incomes.” 

Vilar empha­sized that ​“the decadal aver­ages would remain the same, but more sta­ble for the farmer, the mill and the bot­tler.”

However, he also cau­tioned that the mechanism’s effec­tive­ness is not guar­an­teed. 

“We must see whether immo­bi­liz­ing that set amount could influ­ence the mar­ket, and whether Spain’s inter­ven­tion would affect global trade among pro­duc­ers,” he said. ​“Even with a cam­paign match­ing the national aver­age, prices have declined. So it might not be an effi­cient tool and could gen­er­ate com­mer­cial dis­tor­tions.”

Looking ahead, Vilar sees struc­tural shifts in the sec­tor. ​“The olive sec­tor is enter­ing a new cycle,” he explained. 

“If con­firmed, we could face sev­eral years where sup­ply poten­tially exceeds real demand, with con­se­quences for price trends,” Vilar con­cluded. ​“We’ll need to work on devel­op­ing demand in the com­ing years to reverse the cycle and start anew.”