Tunisia Eyes Record 500,000-Ton Olive Oil Production, Boosting a Key Export Engine

Summary

Tunisia is expect­ing a record olive oil sea­son with up to 500,000 met­ric tons of out­put, which would ben­e­fit the econ­omy and solid­ify its posi­tion as a top global pro­ducer. Despite the poten­tial for a bumper crop, Tunisia faces chal­lenges in increas­ing the share of pack­aged olive oil exports and nav­i­gat­ing a softer global mar­ket due to increased sup­ply from other Mediterranean coun­tries.

Tunisia is poised for a his­toric olive oil sea­son, with pro­duc­ers fore­cast­ing up to 500,000 met­ric tons of out­put — about 50 per­cent more than last year — thanks mainly to well-timed rains. The bumper crop would cement the North African nation’s sta­tus among the world’s lead­ing olive oil pro­duc­ers and pro­vide a wel­come lift to its frag­ile econ­omy, accord­ing to a report from Arab News.

Najah Saidi Hamed, head of the country’s Olive Producers Chamber, said the har­vest out­look reflects favor­able rain­fall pat­terns and fruit set across major grow­ing regions. A final tally near 500,000 tons would be a record for Tunisia, sur­pass­ing the country’s pre­vi­ous best cam­paigns.

Olive oil is Tunisia’s flag­ship agri­cul­tural export and a cru­cial source of for­eign cur­rency. In recent years, the sec­tor has gen­er­ated record export rev­enues, even as most ship­ments left the coun­try in bulk rather than branded bot­tles — an issue pol­i­cy­mak­ers and pro­duc­ers con­tinue to address, accord­ing to Reuters.

Independent indus­try analy­ses also point to a record crop for 2025/26, with esti­mates rang­ing from 400,000 to 500,000 tons as orchards rebound from prior drought stress.

Historically, Tunisia’s largest mod­ern har­vests have occurred in the 2019/20 cam­paign, widely cited by the International Olive Council at around 440,000 tons. That bench­mark under­scores how excep­tional a 500,000-ton out­come would be.

Tunisia rou­tinely ranks among the world’s top olive-oil exporters. Even amid recent price volatil­ity, export val­ues have remained sub­stan­tial, high­light­ing the sector’s impor­tance to the trade bal­ance. A larger crop typ­i­cally sup­ports higher export vol­umes, though global prices will influ­ence total rev­enue.

A sup­ply rebound across the Mediterranean — espe­cially in Spain — has pres­sured inter­na­tional prices, mean­ing Tunisia will have to nav­i­gate a softer global mar­ket, Reuters reported on the EU olive oil sup­ply.

Despite progress, the share of pack­aged (bot­tled and branded) Tunisian olive oil remains mod­est com­pared with bulk ship­ments, lim­it­ing value cap­ture for local pro­duc­ers. Government and indus­try ini­tia­tives con­tinue to focus on increased bot­tling, mar­ket­ing, and mar­ket diver­si­fi­ca­tion (Olive Oil Times).

Harvest fore­casts remain weather-sen­si­tive until milling wraps up. Tunisia’s groves also fol­low the olive tree’s nat­ural alter­nate-bear­ing (on/off) cycle, which can swing pro­duc­tion from year to year. Still, with wide­spread reports of abun­dant fruit and ade­quate rain­fall, pro­duc­ers are cau­tiously opti­mistic that 2025/26 will be a high-water mark.

If Tunisia deliv­ers around 500,000 tons of olive oil in 2025/26, the coun­try would set a new national pro­duc­tion record, rein­forc­ing its posi­tion among the top global sup­pli­ers and offer­ing a timely boost to export earn­ings. The next chal­lenge will be con­vert­ing this bumper har­vest into sus­tain­able income by bal­anc­ing bulk sales with higher-value pack­aged exports and man­ag­ing poten­tial price pres­sures in global mar­kets.

• Arab News
• Reuters