The Opportunities and Challenges of Colombia’s Olive Oil Market

Summary

Olive oil con­sump­tion in Colombia has nearly dou­bled over the past five years, but still only accounts for 1.7 per­cent of total edi­ble oil con­sump­tion, with palm oil dom­i­nat­ing. Importers face chal­lenges in expand­ing the mar­ket due to high costs, includ­ing taxes and trans­porta­tion, but are focus­ing on edu­cat­ing chefs and con­sumers to con­tinue the growth in con­sump­tion.

Olive oil con­sump­tion in Colombia, Latin America’s fourth-largest econ­omy, has nearly dou­bled over the past five years, ris­ing from four mil­lion liters in 2019 to 7.6 mil­lion liters in 2024.

Despite the increase, olive oil still accounts for only 1.7 per­cent of total edi­ble oil con­sump­tion. Soybean, sun­flower and palm oil — some pro­duced locally — account for nearly half of all con­sump­tion.

“Palm oil still dom­i­nates in restau­rants and the food indus­try, but olive oil con­sump­tion is clearly grow­ing,” said William Cortés, the sales direc­tor of Frutalia.

Cortés, who imports extra vir­gin olive oil from Spain and pro­duces small quan­ti­ties in Colombia, said the change has been evi­dent in super­mar­kets.

Retail shelf space for olive oils has expanded quickly, shift­ing from white-label brands sourced from major bot­tlers in Spain and Italy to pro­pri­etary labels from Argentina, Chile, Greece and Spain.

“Consumption has risen sig­nif­i­cantly for health rea­sons, espe­cially dur­ing and after the Covid-19 pan­demic,” Cortés said, not­ing the influ­ence of tele­vi­sion pro­grams such as MasterChef.

“Public per­cep­tion has changed, too,” he added. ​“Olive oil used to be seen as a home rem­edy — some­thing for kid­ney stones or to drink on an empty stom­ach. Now peo­ple under­stand that extra vir­gin olive oil should be part of their daily diet, not an occa­sional treat­ment.”

Antonio Muñoz, chief exec­u­tive of AOVEColombia, also linked the surge in demand to grow­ing inter­est in healthy foods.

“In just five years, the per­cep­tion has com­pletely changed,” he said. ​“Now they see that olive oil is good for every­thing — for health, for the skin.”

AOVEColombia, which sup­plies high-end restau­rants and hotels, launched oper­a­tions in 2021. Muñoz said demand has remained strong even as prices at ori­gin hit record highs in 2023 and 2024.

“The chef always chooses extra vir­gin olive oil because it makes his dishes out­stand­ing,” he said. ​“They use it as part of the dish itself, not just as a means to pre­pare it.”

Still, Muñoz and Cortés agree that lim­ited con­sumer knowl­edge remains the biggest chal­lenge for importers.

The Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX), which iden­ti­fies Colombia as a strate­gic mar­ket for Spanish exporters, has also empha­sized the need for more com­pre­hen­sive con­sumer edu­ca­tion and enhanced mar­ket pen­e­tra­tion.

“Most Colombians don’t yet know how to rec­og­nize a fresh oil,” Cortés said. ​“A true extra vir­gin olive oil should have a grassy aroma, a fruity fla­vor and a pleas­ant bit­ter­ness or pep­pery fin­ish. Many oils sold here smell ran­cid, mean­ing they’re no longer fresh or were stored too long.”

Muñoz noted that slow super­mar­ket turnover often leaves shop­pers with bot­tles from pre­vi­ous har­vests rather than the most recent one.

“You have to show peo­ple what fresh olive oil is, because the big prob­lem in Colombia is the lack of prod­uct turnover,” he said. ​“As a result, the oil goes ran­cid. It’s rare to find a bot­tle on the shelf that still has that fresh touch.”

Muñoz has focused on edu­cat­ing chefs about cook­ing with olive oil, often begin­ning by dis­pelling myths, such as con­cerns about the smoke point.

For now, olive oil con­sump­tion is con­cen­trated in Bogotá, Medellín and Cali, home to about a quar­ter of the country’s pop­u­la­tion.

Both importers expect chal­lenges in expand­ing the mar­ket due to the high cost of olive oil rel­a­tive to other edi­ble oils.

They said importers pay a 19 per­cent tax to legal­ize olive oil upon arrival at the ports of Barranquilla or Cartagena, plus an addi­tional 19 per­cent value-added tax on sales to restau­rants, retail­ers, and con­sumers.

Transport adds fur­ther cost. Colombia lacks rail links between its port cities and its major con­sumer cen­ters in the Andes. Goods move entirely by road, often along routes in poor con­di­tion.

Muñoz esti­mated that a con­tainer can take 24 hours to reach Bogotá from Cartagena, a jour­ney of nearly 1,000 kilo­me­ters.

“Logistics are also a major issue,” Cortés said. ​“For exam­ple, it costs more to ship a con­tainer from Bogotá to Cartagena than from China to New York. Everything moves by road, the infra­struc­ture isn’t great, and the dis­tances are long. That affects our com­pet­i­tive­ness and our costs.”

While Muñoz views chef edu­ca­tion as essen­tial for under­stand­ing the health ben­e­fits and sen­sory qual­i­ties of olive oil, Cortés focuses on con­sumers through tours of his groves and mill.

“Through our tourism project, we teach vis­i­tors to rec­og­nize fresh olive oil through tast­ings and guided ses­sions,” he said. ​“Finding high-qual­ity oil in Colombia remains dif­fi­cult; some­times even the same brand varies from one har­vest to the next. But inter­est is grow­ing, and we believe con­sump­tion will con­tinue to rise.”