`Spain Reclaims Top Spot as Largest Olive Oil Exporter to U.S. - Olive Oil Times
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Spain Reclaims Top Spot as Largest Olive Oil Exporter to U.S.

By Máté Pálfi
Aug. 2, 2023 14:16 UTC

Spanish olive oil exports to the United States have over­taken Italian exports, accord­ing to data from U.S. cus­toms shared with the Interprofessional Association of Spanish Olive Oil.

In the first quar­ter of 2023, Spain exported 166,859 tons of vir­gin and extra vir­gin olive oil to the United States, com­pared to 123,960 tons of exports from Italy, mak­ing Spain the country’s largest sup­plier.

The mora­to­rium imposed on tar­iffs on Spanish olive oil has been deci­sive for us to regain lead­er­ship in such an impor­tant mar­ket for us.- Rafael Pico Lapuente, exec­u­tive direc­tor, Asoliva

The Institute of Foreign Trade of Spain (ICEX) in New York esti­mated that Spanish olive oil now accounts for about 41 per­cent of U.S. olive oil imports by vol­ume and 38 per­cent by value.

The lat­est cus­toms data con­firms the trend of increas­ing Spanish olive oil exports to the world’s third-largest olive oil con­sumer by vol­ume and value.

See Also:Olive Oil Trade News

Data from Spain’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism showed that Spain exported 155,159 tons of olive oil in all of its frac­tions to the United States in 2022, slightly exceed­ing the 150,245 tons in 2021 and 11 per­cent above the five-year aver­age.

However, olive oil prices at ori­gin have increased steeply and steadily since July 2022, break­ing records through­out 2023 and show­ing no signs of abat­ing. As a result, Spanish exports by value to the U.S. increased at a far more accel­er­ated rate.

Data from the trade min­istry show that Spain exported €641,569,820 worth of olive oil in all of its frac­tions to the U.S. in 2022, sig­nif­i­cantly above the €486,511,210 of 2021 and 47 per­cent above the five-year aver­age.

Trade offi­cials pointed to the sus­pen­sion of a 25-per­cent tar­iff on some Spanish olive oil and table olive exports, imposed by the U.S. in 2019 dur­ing a trade dis­pute between the U.S. and European Union sur­round­ing sub­si­dies for their respec­tive air­plane man­u­fac­tur­ers.

“The mora­to­rium imposed on tar­iffs on Spanish olive oil has been deci­sive for us to regain lead­er­ship in such an impor­tant mar­ket for us,” Rafael Pico Lapuente, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Spanish Association of Olive Oil Exporters, Industry and Commerce (Asoliva), told El País.

Jeffrey Shaw, from ICEX New York, indi­cated that Spanish olive oil exports to the U.S. have increased due to sev­eral fac­tors, pre-dat­ing the tar­iffs and directly stem­ming from them.

He told the EFE that Spanish pro­duc­ers have long under­stood the impor­tance of sup­ply­ing bulk olive oil to pri­vate label­ers, which he esti­mated account for roughly one-third of U.S. olive oil sales.

Additionally, the 25 per­cent tar­iff only applied to indi­vid­u­ally pack­aged Spanish exports and not exports in bulk. As a result, this forced some of Spain’s largest pro­duc­ers and retail­ers to open U.S. bot­tling and dis­tri­b­u­tion facil­i­ties to pack­age increased exports in bulk under new U.S.-based brands, which increased con­sumer expo­sure to Spanish oils.

Spanish exports to the U.S. will almost cer­tainly decline in 2023 and 2024 after Spain’s his­tor­i­cally poor har­vest in the 2022/23 crop year and antic­i­pa­tion of another low yield in 2023/24.

Still, Shaw said there is plenty of room for expan­sion in the U.S. mar­ket, point­ing to per capita olive oil con­sump­tion of just 2 liters per annum in the U.S., com­pared to 12 liters per annum in Spain.

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