`Still Lower Prices, Black Olives for Breakfast in Latest IOC Data - Olive Oil Times

Still Lower Prices, Black Olives for Breakfast in Latest IOC Data

By Julie Butler
Nov. 13, 2011 20:29 UTC

Worldwide trade in olive oil is up 10 per­cent on last year — an increase of 120,222 tons, accord­ing to the October Market Newsletter of the International Olive Council (IOC).

For the ten months to July 2011, imports into Brazil notched an impres­sive climb of 23 per­cent on the same period a year ago, and also rose sig­nif­i­cantly in the United States (9 per­cent) and Canada (7 per­cent). But in Australia and Japan, they con­tin­ued to fall, down 9 per­cent and 11 per­cent respec­tively.

EVOO Producer prices

While Spanish olive oil prices enjoyed a small rally when the European Commission announced lim­ited aid for tem­po­rary pri­vate stor­age of vir­gin olive oil on September 30, the impact has not endured. Prices have turned down­wards again. By the last week of October they had returned to the level recorded in the last week of September, i.e. €1.85/kg,” noted the IOC. It added prices in Italy have also fallen sharply (-24.7 per­cent) after hit­ting a record level in week 20 (€3.92/kg).

However in com­par­i­son with the same period a year ago, prices have dropped 6 per­cent in Spain (€1.85/kg) and 4 per­cent in Greece (€1.95/kg) but climbed 7 per­cent in Italy (€2.95/kg).

Spain’s 2010/11 pro­duc­tion

According to new fig­ures included in the report from the Spanish Olive Oil Agency, at the close of the 2010/11 sea­son (end of September 2011) Spain, the world’s top pro­ducer, had pro­duced 1,389,700 tons of olive oil. Spanish imports totaled 45,800 tons, down 3 per­cent on last sea­son, while domes­tic con­sump­tion (557,600 tons) was up 5 per­cent. According to pro­vi­sional fig­ures, Spain exported 824,100 tons of olive oil.

Profiles of table olive and olive oil con­sump­tion in Turkey, Morocco and Spain

The newslet­ter shared details of recent pro­files on olive and olive oil con­sump­tion. In Turkey, where more table olives (and pre­dom­i­nantly the black vari­ety) are con­sumed than olive oil, a sur­vey found 58 per­cent of con­sumers asso­ci­ated them with break­fast. In 2010/11, Turkey con­sumed 12 per­cent of all the table olives pro­duced in the world, rank­ing sec­ond after the EU27.

Moroccans con­sume 2.8kg of olive oil and 1.2 kg of table olives (pre­dom­i­nantly the Picholine maro­caine vari­ety) per capita each year. The coun­try last year dou­bled its olive oil pro­duc­tion and cur­rent olive cul­ti­va­tion totals 730,000 hectares, 7 per­cent of which are irri­gated.

In Spain, where green table olives are the most pop­u­lar, 4 per­cent of the country’s total olive crop area (2.5 mil­lion ha) is ded­i­cated to grow­ing table olives, mainly the Hojiblanca and Manzanilla vari­eties. Sixty per­cent of its table olives are exported. The aver­age Spaniard con­sumers 3.8 kg of table olives a year and it’s the Catalans who eat the most.

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