U.S. Sees Significant Growth in Organic Olive Oil Sales

Summary

Organic olive oil sales are increas­ing in the U.S., while total extra vir­gin olive oil sales have slightly declined, accord­ing to indus­try data. The rise in organic olive oil sales is part of a broader trend attrib­uted to the per­cep­tion that organic foods are health­ier and bet­ter for the envi­ron­ment.

Organic olive oil sales are ris­ing in the United States. In con­trast, total extra vir­gin olive oil sales have slightly declined, accord­ing to indus­try data shared with Olive Oil Times by the North American Olive Oil Association (NAOOA).

Organic olive oil sales by vol­ume, 98 per­cent of which are extra vir­gin, increased by 7.2 per­cent in the 52 weeks end­ing April 24, 2024. Conversely, total extra vir­gin olive oil sales by vol­ume fell by two per­cent over the same period in the world’s sec­ond-largest olive oil-con­sum­ing coun­try.

Looking fur­ther back, in the pre­vi­ous 52-week period, organic olive oil sales increased by 2.7 per­cent while total extra vir­gin olive oil sales remained sta­ble.

Outside of the U.S., organic olive oil sales are also expected to increase. According to mar­ket research, the global organic olive oil mar­ket is fore­casted to rise from $933 mil­lion in 2021 to $2.2 bil­lion by 2031, with an annual growth rate of nearly nine per­cent.

The increase in organic olive oil sales is part of a broader trend. In its 2024 organic indus­try sur­vey, the Organic Trade Association said cer­ti­fied organic prod­uct sales grew to a record-high $69.7 bil­lion in the U.S. in 2023, an increase of 3.4 per­cent from the pre­vi­ous year.

While Joseph R. Profaci, the NAOOA’s exec­u­tive direc­tor, cau­tioned data mea­sured in dol­lars could be mis­lead­ing if the fig­ures are not adjusted for infla­tion, which came in at 3.4 per­cent on an annu­al­ized basis in the U.S. in 2023, he agreed that organic olive oil con­sump­tion increases are part of a broader trend.

“Extra vir­gin olive oil is not alone among food cat­e­gories in which organic sales are cur­rently out­pac­ing con­ven­tional sales in growth met­rics,” he said. ​“Much of this is attrib­uted to the per­cep­tion that organic foods are health­ier for you and that they are bet­ter for the envi­ron­ment, which we know are both move­ments that con­tinue to gain pop­u­lar­ity in the U.S.”

“This may be par­tic­u­larly applic­a­ble to olive oil because our shop­per is usu­ally more well edu­cated and afflu­ent than the tra­di­tional shop­per, and there­fore, they would likely be more inclined to be aware of these trends and able to afford the pre­mium paid for organic olive oil,” Profaci added.

Thierry Moyroud, the chief exec­u­tive of Deoleo North America, attrib­uted ris­ing organic olive oil sales to Walmart, the world’s largest retailer.

“The big win­ner of every­thing that hap­pened in pric­ing, beyond olive oil, with the infla­tion that we wit­nessed in the last years has been Walmart,” he said. ​“Walmart has a higher share of olive oil sales than any other organic retailer. When Walmart’s sales grow, so do organic sales.”

Moyroud believes another fac­tor behind the trend has been the bifur­ca­tion of the U.S. olive oil mar­ket.

“What has hap­pened here is a polar­iza­tion due to pric­ing,” he said. ​“At the bot­tom of the spec­trum, some house­holds are not buy­ing olive oil any­more” due to ris­ing prices at ori­gin and the impact of infla­tion on other house­hold sta­ples.

“Organic olive oil, which tends to be more expen­sive, is bought by peo­ple with greater pur­chas­ing power. Even if prices rise, they are unlikely to stop buy­ing it,” Moyroud added. ​“The house­hold buy­ing organic prod­ucts is less price sen­si­tive.”

While imports com­prise about 97 per­cent of U.S. olive oil con­sump­tion, organic olive oil pro­duc­tion is increas­ingly pop­u­lar in California. However, not all Golden State organic grow­ers and millers have seen the broader national trend in their sales.

Still, Stefanie Wickensheimer, the exec­u­tive assis­tant and project direc­tor at Rio Bravo Ranch, has noticed an increased demand for organic olive oil.

“We get some cus­tomers who ask specif­i­cally if it is organic. I think a lot of peo­ple are real­iz­ing that there are many health ben­e­fits to eat­ing organic,” she said. ​“No pes­ti­cides are involved in the farm­ing, result­ing in a safer prod­uct all around.”

However, Phil Asquith, the owner of Ojai Olive Oil, has seen the oppo­site trend.

“If any­thing, people’s inter­est in organic seems to have flat­tened out or even decreased,” he said. ​“People choose based on which olive oils they like more than which ones are cer­ti­fied.”

Asquith said that many of his cus­tomers and other olive oil con­sumers he knows are more con­cerned about qual­ity and prove­nance than organic cer­ti­fi­ca­tions.

“They are more con­cerned with the oil being local, high qual­ity and from a com­pany they trust,” he said. ​“All of our oils are organic, but not all are cer­ti­fied and labeled as such. The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion stan­dards and costs have become quite a bur­den, so we only cer­tify cer­tain prod­ucts, even though they all would qual­ify.”