Greece's Olive Oil Yield Exceeds Projections

Summary

Greece’s olive oil yield for the sea­son is expected to reach 250,000 tons, a sig­nif­i­cant increase from the pre­vi­ous year. Despite some regions pro­duc­ing less than expected due to weather con­di­tions, over­all olive oil pro­duc­tion in Greece has been robust, lead­ing to frus­tra­tion among pro­duc­ers over falling prices.

While mills across Greece are pro­cess­ing the last olives of the sea­son, the ini­tial pro­jec­tions for a sat­is­fac­tory olive oil yield in the coun­try have been con­firmed.

Official data from the European Commission’s obser­va­tory for olive oil and table olives fore­casted that Greece would pro­duce 229,500 tons of olive oil at the end of February. In con­trast, this season’s pro­duc­tion is expected to reach the ini­tially esti­mated 250,000 tons.

Greece emerged as the sec­ond-largest olive oil pro­ducer in the E.U. in the 2024/25 crop year after Spain. When all the Mediterranean pro­duc­ing coun­tries are con­sid­ered, Greece is expected to rank fourth, behind Turkey and Tunisia.

The expected national yield of 250,000 tons of olive oil also rep­re­sents a twofold increase from last year’s his­tor­i­cally low har­vest of around 120,000 tons.

The pro­longed drought that dom­i­nated south­ern Greece last fall, which spread anx­i­ety among pro­duc­ers about reduced yields, was fol­lowed by abun­dant rains that trans­formed the country’s olive oil indus­try.

“The first olive oils of the sea­son were not of the qual­ity we were look­ing for because of the drought,” olive miller Christos Valavanis from Mani in south­ern Peloponnese told Olive Oil Times. ​“However, the November rains in our area were deci­sive for the olive trees to rebound and deliver oils of fine qual­ity.”

Producers in almost all of south­ern Greece have enjoyed robust yields this sea­son.

“We are very pleased this year despite the early esti­mates of a reduced pro­duc­tion due to the long dry sum­mer,” said Kostas Panagiotopoulos of the Monopati pro­duc­ers’ asso­ci­a­tion in Ilia in west­ern Peloponnese.

“Compared to last sea­son, we had a 30 per­cent increase in quan­tity,” he added. ​“Of course, if it weren’t for the high tem­per­a­tures of the sum­mer, the quan­tity would have been even higher.”

On the island of Evia, which runs par­al­lel with cen­tral Greece to the east, pro­ducer and miller Michalis Kounouvelis from Kehries said the sea­son was reward­ing for local pro­duc­ers com­pared to the pre­vi­ous har­vest.

“We have got twice as much as last year’s olive oil from our Megaritiki olive trees,” Kounouvelis said. ​“In advance, the qual­ity is excel­lent, with the acid­ity of the oils in our area only reach­ing 0.2 to 0.3 per­cent.”

However, the region’s olive groves still bear the scars of the 2021 fires, with state aid for impacted farm­ers lag­ging.

“The 2021 wild­fires took a heavy toll in our area,” Kounouvelis said. ​“A lot of olive trees were burned, and pro­duc­ers with dam­aged or destroyed trees have so far been com­pen­sated with only €25 per tree. The amount is not enough to cover the dam­age.”

After the 2021 wild­fires, full-time olive grow­ers in Greece expected to receive approx­i­mately €100 for each olive tree dam­aged by fire.

Despite the increased olive oil yields across Greece com­pared to last year, farm­ers and millers in some parts of the coun­try pro­duced less than ini­tially expected.

Across the Aegean Sea on the island of Lesbos, a tra­di­tional Greek olive oil-pro­duc­ing region, the expec­ta­tions for a crop close to the island’s top pro­duc­tion capac­ity were dashed at milling time.

“The trees were loaded with olives, but the lack of rains caused the olives to yield less oil than expected,” local pro­ducer and mill owner Michalis Tzortzis said.

“The over­all olive oil pro­duc­tion on the island will likely stay below 10,000 tons com­pared to around 18,000 tons in abun­dant years,” he added. ​“Nevertheless, it is still a big improve­ment from the pre­vi­ous dis­as­trous sea­son.”

Tzortzis finally said that a slim pro­duc­tion of olive oil should be expected in the 2025/26 crop year on Lesbos. He blamed this on the late blos­som­ing of the trees this spring and the bien­nial pro­duc­tion cycle of the island’s indige­nous olive vari­eties, the Adramytini and the Kolovi.

Crete is another tra­di­tional pro­duc­ing ter­ri­tory where olive oil pro­duc­tion has recov­ered this sea­son. In the west­ern part of the island, the region of Chania has lived up to its rep­u­ta­tion as a place where high-qual­ity olive oil is pro­duced.

“We expect the region to give around 23,000 tons com­pared to only 16,000 tons last year,” Ioannis Mamidakis from the local depart­ment of agri­cul­ture told Olive Oil Times. ​“The qual­ity of the olive oils is also excep­tional, with 92 per­cent of the season’s fresh oils clas­si­fied as extra vir­gin,” he added.

This year, olive oil prices tell a dif­fer­ent story: pro­duc­ers across the coun­try are frus­trated by the exist­ing prices at ori­gin, which have more than halved from last year’s €10 per kilo­gram of extra vir­gin olive oil.

“The new real­ity is around €4.30 for a kilo­gram of low-acid­ity extra vir­gin,” said Yiorgos Kokkinos, the head of the Nileas asso­ci­a­tion from Hora in south­ern Peloponnese.

“The ini­tial pro­jec­tion of the IOC for a global pro­duc­tion of 3.4 mil­lion tons has been con­firmed,” Kokkinos also said. ​“At the same time, the mar­ket is not inter­ested in buy­ing [olive oil]. Some expect prices to rise, but I do not share these expec­ta­tions. I will say again that prices will fall fur­ther if we have another year with such [high] pro­duc­tion.”

Some farm­ers’ asso­ci­a­tions in the coun­try are resort­ing to mea­sures such as set­ting a min­i­mum price in auc­tions to avoid sell­ing below a fixed price thresh­old.

In Messenia, the agri­cul­tural asso­ci­a­tion of Kalamata’s auc­tion for 25 tons of freshly pro­duced extra vir­gin olive oil ended with­out a deal. The asso­ci­a­tion argued that the poten­tial buy­ers ​“did not respond” to the ask­ing price of €5.10 per kilo­gram.

However, in neigh­bor­ing Laconia, the agri­cul­tural asso­ci­a­tion of Molaon-Pakion sold 80 tons of extra vir­gin olive oil for a lower price.

“We agreed to sell 80 tons for €4.75 per kilo­gram,” the asso­ci­a­tion’s man­ager, Panagiotis Danakas, said. ​“The pro­duc­ers need to sell to cover their expenses. But the Greek state should intro­duce mea­sures at a E.U. level for imports of olive oil from third coun­tries.”

“Those pro­duc­ers who can afford to wait do not sell,” Mamidakis from Chania said. ​“This prac­tice, how­ever, entails the risk of buy­ers turn­ing to other mar­kets to pur­chase olive oil.”

• Agrotypos
• Ypaithros