In Turkey, Olive Oil Exports Rise with Prices and Production

The value of olive oil exports from Turkey has grown 50 per­cent in the 2021/22 crop year, accord­ing to fig­ures pub­lished by the Aegean Exporters’ Associations (EIB).

From November 2021 to October 2022, olive oil ship­ments from the coun­try amounted to 3.75 tril­lion lire (€190 mil­lion).

The EIB attrib­uted the increase to high olive oil prices on the inter­na­tional mar­ket, a 32-per­cent rise in export vol­umes and a sig­nif­i­cant increase in pack­aged ship­ments.

Turkey exported 58,000 tons of olive oil dur­ing this period, com­pared with 44,000 tons in the pre­vi­ous sea­son.

Citing EIB’s data, local media reported that the United States remained the pri­mary importer of Turkish olive oil, with a turnover of $75 mil­lion (€71.4 mil­lion).

According to Turkey’s trade min­istry, olive oil exports to the U.S. have been steadily increas­ing in recent years in quan­tity and value. In 2015, Turkey sold 1,800 tons to the U.S., val­ued at slightly more than $8 mil­lion (€7.6 mil­lion).

Spain and Japan were the sec­ond and third largest importers of Turkish olive oil, pur­chas­ing $24 mil­lion (€22.9 mil­lion) and $17 mil­lion (€16.2 mil­lion), respec­tively.

EIB pres­i­dent Davut Er empha­sized the impor­tance of indi­vid­u­ally pack­aged olive oil ship­ments, 53 per­cent of the total, in increas­ing the value of Turkish exports.

While a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of Turkish olive oil exports are still in bulk, pack­ag­ing, label­ing and brand­ing are cru­cial to increase mar­ket value and pro­mote local extra vir­gin olive oil on the inter­na­tional mar­kets.

“Our pomace exports reached $24 mil­lion with a 178 per­cent increase,” Er told local media. ​“Our aver­age olive oil export price increased by 12 per­cent in the 2021/22 crop year to $3,458 (€3,294) per ton.”

He also empha­sized how the cur­rent crop year is expected to break records regard­ing table olive and olive oil yields.

“This sea­son, our olive oil sec­tor reached the high­est fig­ures in its his­tory,” Er said. ​“We left behind a suc­cess­ful sea­son with 730,000 tons of olives… With these fig­ures, Turkey will rise to first place in the world for table olives and sec­ond for olive oil.”

Given the extra­or­di­nary esti­mated pro­duc­tion, Er added olive oil and table olive exports could reach $500 mil­lion (€476 mil­lion) next year.

Citing sig­nif­i­cant pro­duc­tion decreases across most of Europe and North Africa, Alper Alhat, Akhisar Commodity Exchange chair­man, said new oppor­tu­ni­ties are appear­ing for the Turkish pro­duc­ers.

“This will be a great oppor­tu­nity for exports,” he said. ​“We think the num­bers will increase this year because we are talk­ing about a prod­uct that is not avail­able in the world but is abun­dant in Turkey.”

“Therefore, I would like to state that we have a very valu­able prod­uct,” Alhat added. ​“I think we will see a big increase in exports.”

Along with olive oil, the EIB said total agri­cul­tural exports rose by 17 per­cent last year, with a turnover of $6.6 bil­lion (€6.3 bil­lion).

• Turkish trade min­istry
• Daily Sabah
• Anadolu Agency