Spanish Olive Oil Sales Increase in China

In the 2021/22 crop, Spanish olive oil sales sig­nif­i­cantly increased in China.

Spanish exporters fin­ished the year with 45,840 tons of olive oil sold in China, an increase of more than 10 per­cent. In addi­tion to the increase in sale vol­umes, value also rose by 48 per­cent, reach­ing €177 mil­lion.

The Interprofessional Association of Spanish Olive Oil reached these con­clu­sions after ana­lyz­ing data from Chinese cus­toms for the first nine months of 2022.

Pedro Barato, pres­i­dent of the Interprofessional Association of Spanish Olive Oil, praised the data from China.

“In the pre­vi­ous cam­paign, we exported almost 46,000 tons of olive oil to China, 10.25 per­cent more than in the past cam­paign,” he said. ​“So that we can have a pre­cise idea of what that fig­ure means, our clos­est com­peti­tor exported 2,830 tons, which is 16 times less.”

According to the International Olive Council, China con­sumed 57,500 tons of olive oil in the 2021/22 crop year. However, the coun­try only pro­duced 8,000 tons, mean­ing most Chinese demand is met by exports.

China is the world’s fifth-largest olive oil importer, just above Japan and the United Kingdom, and the largest con­sumer of Spanish olive oil out­side of Europe and the United States.

Barato attrib­uted Spain’s dom­i­nant posi­tion in the olive oil sec­tor of the world’s sec­ond-largest econ­omy to exporters’ efforts to pro­mote Spanish olive oil in China since 2019.

The end of the first phase of the pro­mo­tional cam­paign, which launched four months ago, coin­cided with the Chinese New Year.

“The slo­gan of the new cam­paign in China is very sim­ple: ​‘Olive oils from Spain. The new trend,’” Barato said. ​“We hope this new cam­paign will pro­duce good out­comes. We’re con­vinced that China will be a coun­try of the future and of the trend for Spanish olive oils.”

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