`Chile’s Olive Farmers Report Rebound Harvest - Olive Oil Times
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Chile’s Olive Farmers Report Rebound Harvest

By Daniel Dawson
Oct. 8, 2025 14:35 UTC
Summary Summary

Olive farm­ers and millers in Chile expe­ri­enced a 33 per­cent increase in pro­duc­tion in 2025 com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year, with bet­ter cli­matic con­di­tions cited as the main rea­son for the bumper crop. While some pro­duc­ers saw a decline in pro­duc­tion, oth­ers reported increases, and the removal of tar­iffs on Chilean olive oil imports by the European Union has opened up oppor­tu­ni­ties for the coun­try to tran­si­tion to sell­ing pro­pri­etary brands at higher-end retail­ers.

Olive farm­ers and millers in Chile cel­e­brated a rebound har­vest, with pro­duc­tion in the South American coun­try ris­ing by 33 per­cent com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year.

“Olive oil pro­duc­tion dur­ing the 2025 sea­son reached 20,000 met­ric tons, a value that is above the aver­age of national pro­duc­tions of the last 12 years,” Gabriela Moglia, the gen­eral man­ager of pro­ducer group ChileOliva, told Olive Oil Times.

Officials from the country’s agri­cul­ture min­istry cited bet­ter cli­matic con­di­tions as the main rea­son for the bumper crop.

The 2025 har­vest has been very pos­i­tive for us, despite a con­text marked by adverse and extreme weather con­di­tions, which have rep­re­sented one of the great­est chal­lenges in recent years.- José Manuel Reyes, com­mer­i­cal man­ager, Agrícola Pobeña

In 2024, high win­ter tem­per­a­tures in the north and relent­less rain in cen­tral Chile resulted in one of the country’s low­est har­vests on record.

“Unlike pre­vi­ous years, the weather was much more nor­mal, with only a few days of tem­per­a­tures below freez­ing at the end of June,” said Ismael Heiremans, the pro­duc­tion man­ager at Olivos del Sur, the country’s largest pro­ducer. ​“This helped us sig­nif­i­cantly in obtain­ing excel­lent-qual­ity oil.”

Chile’s farmers and millers celebrated a bumper cop in 2025 with production reaching 20,000 metric tons. (Photo: Agrícola Pobeña)

He added that the main chal­lenge was har­vest­ing the company’s 1,700-hectare olive grove before the mid­dle of June, both to avoid late autumn frost and pro­duce extra vir­gin olive oil from greener olives.

See Also:2025 Harvest Updates

Felipe Juillerat, the gen­eral man­ager of Agroindustria Siracusa, which pro­duces Aura Olive Oil, attrib­uted the company’s pro­duc­tion rebound to more favor­able cli­mate con­di­tions. He said Aura Olive Oil pro­duced eight per­cent more olive oil this year than in 2024.

“We had a win­ter with rel­a­tively nor­mal rain­fall, allow­ing us to start spring with the reser­voir at full capac­ity. Spring fol­lowed with nor­mal to high tem­per­a­tures into sum­mer, and bud­break and flow­er­ing were nor­mal,” he said.

“The sum­mer saw more extreme tem­per­a­tures, and we faced a lack of water in February, just as the fruit-fill­ing stage began,” Juillerat added.

Situated in the Cúrcio Valley, about 100 kilo­me­ters south of Santiago, Juillerat said Aura Olive Oil faced the usual chal­lenge of com­plet­ing the har­vest ahead of the win­ter rains in June. 

In par­tic­u­lar for this year, he added that the small size of the fruit, espe­cially the Arbosana vari­ety, and the greater degree of ripeness cre­ated addi­tional chal­lenges. ​“But we were ulti­mately able to obtain good oils of vary­ing inten­si­ties,” Juillerat said.

However, not all of Chile’s pro­duc­ers expe­ri­enced a har­vest rebound. Javier Sahli, the head of pro­duc­tion at CIS Agro, stated that the Alcones-based pro­ducer reg­is­tered a record har­vest in 2024 and expe­ri­enced a slight decline in pro­duc­tion in 2025.

“The main chal­lenge was the orchards’ recov­ery after such a demand­ing sea­son as 2024,” Sahli said. ​“This involved bal­anced fer­til­iza­tion, recov­ery prun­ing, and sched­uled appli­ca­tions to main­tain a healthy and veg­e­ta­tively active orchard. During the har­vest process, the chal­lenge was to make the most of a lower fruit load, but with a higher cal­iber and good oil yield.”

Carlos Díaz of Colchagua-based Guerrero Díaz added that his com­pany expe­ri­enced ​“rel­a­tively mediocre yields, start­ing at 12 per­cent and at the end of the cam­paign, we did not exceed 18 per­cent.” 

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Despite what he described as gen­er­ally good cli­matic con­di­tions in the lead up to the har­vest, Díaz added that autumn rains fur­ther com­pli­cated the har­vest.

About 100 kilo­me­ters north­west of Santiago, the pro­duc­ers behind Olivos Ruta del Sol reported a 19 per­cent increase in pro­duc­tion com­pared to 2024.

Along with a bumper crop, Fernando Carrasco Spano said the E.U.‘s decision to drop tariffs on olive oils was another highlight in 2025. (Photo: Olivos Ruta del Sol)

“The Chilean sum­mer in the Colchagua Valley, where our orchard is located, had long peri­ods of high and favor­able tem­per­a­tures that helped improve pro­duc­tion lead­ing up to the har­vest,” said chief exec­u­tive Fernando Carraso Spano.

“The biggest chal­lenge was achiev­ing extremely high qual­ity, con­sid­er­ing the high vol­umes of Italian vari­eties obtained from the 2025 har­vest,” he added. ​“These vari­eties are har­vested using a vibrat­ing arm sys­tem at a rate of one to 1.5 hectares per day.”

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Meanwhile, José Manuel Reyes, the com­mer­cial man­ager at Agrícola Pobeña, which pro­duces Alonso Olive Oil, stated that the com­pany had expe­ri­enced a 15 per­cent increase in pro­duc­tion.

“This growth, although slightly lower than the national aver­age reported by ChileOliva, reflects greater pro­duc­tion effi­ciency and favor­able weather con­di­tions, espe­cially thanks to the increase in rain­fall last win­ter, which ben­e­fited crop devel­op­ment,” he said.

“The 2025 har­vest has been very pos­i­tive for us, despite a con­text marked by adverse and extreme weather con­di­tions, which have rep­re­sented one of the great­est chal­lenges in recent years,” Manuel Reyes added. ​“The intense rains and frosts recorded dur­ing the har­vest period threat­ened to delay the har­vest and affect the qual­ity of our oils.”

Agrícola Pobeña overcame significant challenges from the climate to celebrate a significant harvest rebound. (Photo: Agrícola Pobeña)

Bumper har­vests across the coun­try fol­lowed the European Union’s deci­sion to remove tar­iffs on Chilean olive oil imports in March. 

Impacted pro­duc­ers hailed the deci­sion as an oppor­tu­nity for the coun­try to tran­si­tion from being mostly providers of bulk oil to large bot­tlers, sell­ing pro­pri­etary brands at higher-end retail­ers.

“It has been a tremen­dous oppor­tu­nity for our com­pany,” said Carraso Spano of Olivos Ruta del Sol. ​“We are already coor­di­nat­ing our par­tic­i­pa­tion in food fairs in Europe to make our high-qual­ity prod­uct avail­able to mar­kets in Italy, Spain and the rest of Europe.”

“The new agree­ment opens a real oppor­tu­nity to expand our pres­ence in Europe, espe­cially in high-qual­ity niches, which we have been work­ing on for some time,” added Manuel Reyes of Agrícola Pobeña. ​“We are con­fi­dent that this step will allow us to con­sol­i­date our posi­tion in the European mar­ket.”

Looking ahead to the 2026 har­vest, Chile’s olive oil pro­duc­ers are feel­ing opti­mistic based on the strong bud­ding and favor­able win­ter and spring weather. 

“A good har­vest is expected,” said Heiremans of Olivos del Sur. ​“Environmental con­di­tions dur­ing the 2025 win­ter have been quite favor­able. There has been a good amount of rain­fall, ensur­ing a water sup­ply for irri­ga­tion dur­ing the sum­mer, and good spring con­di­tions for the start of bud­ding. We hope these con­di­tions will con­tinue for the flow­er­ing period (late October).”

Sahli reported that CIS Agro’s groves are cur­rently in the flower clus­ter­ing stage, and the orchards are look­ing healthy.

“The lat­eral prun­ing car­ried out, along with the late rains, allows us to start fer­ti­ga­tion later than usual,” he said. ​“These fac­tors indi­cate that we could have above-aver­age pro­duc­tion, although off­set by the effects of prun­ing.”

Juillerat of Agroidustria Siracusa said that his company’s feoves are also in the bud­ding stage, but the out­come so far looks var­ied.

“Arbequina has a greater flower sup­ply, while Arbosana has a more var­ied appear­ance; there are areas with good bud­ding and oth­ers with more decline,” he said. ​“Extreme sum­mer tem­per­a­tures and water avail­abil­ity are the main causes of the bud­ding we’re see­ing now.”

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