Poor Olive Harvests in Europe Lead to Boom in Exports From Mendoza

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Olive oil exports have quadru­pled in the past five years in the Argentinian province of Mendoza, accord­ing to gov­ern­ment sta­tis­tics.

Producers in the west­ern province exported nearly 10,000 tons of bulk and indi­vid­u­ally pack­aged olive oil last year, up from nearly 5,000 tons in 2016.

The main des­ti­na­tions for the olive oil were Brazil, Canada, Chile, the United States, Mexico and Spain. Olive oil pro­duc­ers in the region attribute the increase in exports to bad years for pro­duc­ers in the European Union and a ris­ing demand in Brazil and the United States for olive oil.

“The increase in exports in 2017 was, in part, due to the low har­vest in 2016 in Spain of fruit des­tined for the pro­duc­tion of olive oil,” José Luis Simone, the head of Olivicola Simone, said.

Olivicola Simone is an oil pro­ducer based in Mendoza. Simone said that an increased demand for canned olive oil and a grow­ing appetite for extra vir­gin olive oil in California also fac­tored into the increase in exports.

“Here in Argentina, we export plenty of canned oil to Brazil… They are big con­sumers of canned goods and [we sold more oil] than usual last year,” he said. ​“In addi­tion, one com­pany in California also imported a lot from us.”

According to ProMendoza, an orga­ni­za­tion that pro­motes exports from small and medium-sized busi­nesses, olive oil sales increased by more than 100 per­cent from 2016 to 2017.

Ana Stoddart, a busi­ness intel­li­gence ana­lyst at ProMendoza, said that olive oil exports to Spain and the United States dras­ti­cally rebounded from last year and made up a major­ity of the region’s increase in exports.

“The national exports of olive oil [to Spain and the US] have grown at rates above 100 per­cent,” she said.

The exported oil has increased in qual­ity as well. Last year’s exports were worth approx­i­mately $3,900 per ton com­pared with the $3,400 per ton in 2016.

“In terms of qual­ity, Mendoza pro­duced oil that falls well within the International Olive Council reg­u­la­tions,” Simone said. ​“Our very high oil qual­ity stan­dards are espe­cially appre­ci­ated by the North American mar­ket.”

Stoddart attrib­uted the aug­mented exports to the increas­ing stan­dard of the oil’s sen­so­r­ial qual­i­ties, which is sought after by olive oil con­sumers.

“The organolep­tic prop­er­ties of oils is excep­tional with very good pub­lic accep­tance,” she said. ​“The out­look for the sec­tor is pos­i­tive.”

This opti­mism for the future is wide­spread in the province. Simone sees the grow­ing demand for higher qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil in North America as very favor­able for Mendoza, pro­vided pro­duc­ers can keep up.

“As more and more extra vir­gin olive oil is con­sumed, it will cause a more aggres­sive demand for fruit from the oil indus­try in the future,” he said.

However, Nicolás Piazza, the head of inter­na­tional nego­ti­a­tions at ProMendoza, warned that future demand will not solely be dic­tated by oil qual­ity.

“When these vari­a­tions in exports occur, it is due, in part, to the har­vests, but also has to do with the per­for­mance of the inter­na­tional mar­kets,” he said.

Piazza believes that pro­duc­ers in Mendoza must con­cen­trate on South American mar­kets, such as Chile and Brazil in order to main­tain their for­ward momen­tum.

“In 2018 we will focus on con­tin­u­ing to posi­tion Mendoza in large Brazilian mar­kets and encour­age sub-exploited regional mar­kets,” he said.

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