Italy Unveils Plan to Revitalize Sector

Summary

The Italian olive oil sec­tor is under­go­ing a com­pre­hen­sive relaunch with the intro­duc­tion of the National Olive Plan draft, aim­ing to increase pro­duc­tion vol­umes and reduce costs through pub­lic sup­port and restruc­tur­ing. The plan also focuses on strength­en­ing the sup­ply chain, fos­ter­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion between oper­a­tors, cre­at­ing an inter­pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tion, and imple­ment­ing a new qual­ity cer­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem to enhance the recog­ni­tion and sus­tain­abil­ity of top-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil in Italy.

The Italian olive oil sec­tor is prepar­ing for a com­pre­hen­sive relaunch as the gov­ern­ment unveiled its new National Olive Plan draft.

Patrizio Giacomo La Pietra, deputy sec­re­tary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forests, said the top pri­or­ity is to restore larger pro­duc­tion vol­umes after years of steady decline.

With 244,000 tons pro­jected for the 2024/25 crop year, Italy is now poised to rank fifth among the major Mediterranean pro­duc­ers, behind Spain (1.3 mil­lion tons), Turkey (450,000 tons), Tunisia (340,000 tons) and Greece (250,000 tons).

While the plan is still under devel­op­ment, its draft focuses on strength­en­ing the entire sup­ply chain: sup­port­ing olive oil mills, encour­ag­ing the cre­ation of new cul­ti­va­tion areas and address­ing the wide­spread aban­don­ment of olive groves.

Presenting the plan to olive sec­tor asso­ci­a­tions, La Pietra explained that the main goal is to increase Italian olive oil pro­duc­tion by 25 per­cent over the next ten years.

The gov­ern­ment aims to reduce pro­duc­tion costs by at least 20 per­cent within the same time frame through pub­lic sup­port and restruc­tur­ing.

“At the min­istry, we are work­ing to reac­ti­vate the sup­ply chain round­ta­bles, which have been inac­tive for years, start­ing with olive oil,” La Pietra said. ​“We believe that there must be a shared strat­egy and orga­ni­za­tional com­mit­ment before invest­ing.”

Fostering greater col­lab­o­ra­tion between oper­a­tors, includ­ing shared infra­struc­ture, coor­di­nated deci­sion-mak­ing and improved train­ing of sea­sonal work­ers, will be key to cut­ting costs.

Renovating exist­ing infra­struc­ture, research­ing new meth­ods and tech­nolo­gies and mod­ern­iz­ing the sec­tor are essen­tial to achiev­ing these goals.

One of the most praised mea­sures is cre­at­ing an inter­pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tion for the olive oil sec­tor.

Like suc­cess­ful mod­els in coun­tries like Spain, this body is seen as vital for unit­ing stake­hold­ers and pur­su­ing com­mon objec­tives.

According to La Pietra, the inter­pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tion will ​“oper­ate ​‘erga omnes,’ request­ing con­tri­bu­tions from all parts of the sup­ply chain based on mar­keted prod­uct vol­umes, to estab­lish a fund for pro­mot­ing extra vir­gin olive oil.”

“We must agree on action plans at the table and within the inter­pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tion. Otherwise, as has hap­pened in the past, ini­tia­tives risk remain­ing only on paper,” he added.

Anna Cane, pres­i­dent of the olive oil group within the Italian Association of the Edible Oil Industry (Assitol), wel­comed the plan.

“We all need to hit these tar­gets. If we want to be com­pet­i­tive again, higher pro­duc­tion vol­umes at rea­son­able costs are essen­tial,” Cane remarked, empha­siz­ing the cru­cial role of inno­va­tion.

Production may be strug­gling, but extra vir­gin olive oil remains highly pop­u­lar across Italy.

According to data from the Nomisma/Il Sole 24 Ore Observatory, 89 per­cent of Italians con­sider extra vir­gin olive oil supe­rior to other fats. Seventy-nine per­cent believe it is health­ier than alter­na­tives.

Thirty-seven per­cent of a national sam­ple of 1,000 peo­ple said they would like restau­rants to offer a selec­tion of olive oils, as is com­mon with wine.

The sur­vey also revealed a strong inter­est in learn­ing about extra vir­gin olive oil: 40 per­cent are inter­ested in tast­ings and sen­sory classes, and about 30 per­cent seek olive oils in spe­cial­ized stores, includ­ing online shops.

Interestingly, 54 per­cent of buy­ers choose olive oils based on geo­graphic ori­gin, with a grow­ing pref­er­ence for prod­ucts with a Protected Designation of Origin or Protected Geographical Indication cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. These cer­ti­fi­ca­tions guar­an­tee pro­duc­tion in spe­cific areas under strict pro­to­cols.

Given their suc­cess, the national plan may include a new cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. Proponents say it would enhance recog­ni­tion of top-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil.

This new national qual­ity sys­tem, labeled SQN-OAQ, will also high­light sus­tain­abil­ity.

While 96 per­cent of Italians see extra vir­gin olive oil as a national trea­sure, only 20 per­cent know that most olive oil pro­duc­tion fol­lows cir­cu­lar econ­omy prin­ci­ples.

Nomisma ana­lysts sug­gest that increas­ing this aware­ness could lead 81 per­cent of con­sumers to buy more extra vir­gin olive oil.

The sur­vey also found that about one-third of Italians fully under­stand the unique char­ac­ter­is­tics that make extra vir­gin olive oil spe­cial, such as its phe­no­lic pro­file.

“We are not sur­prised that only 37 per­cent know more about extra vir­gin olive oil’s health ben­e­fits,” Cane said.

“The National Olive Plan is the per­fect plat­form to launch a broad com­mu­ni­ca­tion cam­paign,” she added, point­ing to the need for food edu­ca­tion to begin in ele­men­tary schools.

In addi­tion to the plan, sev­eral ini­tia­tives are under­way to sup­port the sec­tor.

La Pietra con­firmed to OlivoNews that about €80 mil­lion will soon be allo­cated to the olive oil mills excluded from the last round of fund­ing due to insuf­fi­cient resources.

New res­o­lu­tions by the Italian par­lia­ment rec­og­nize the crit­i­cal role of olive oil millers.

According to Elia Pellegrino, pres­i­dent of the Italian Olive Oil Millers Association (Aifo), these res­o­lu­tions acknowl­edge that millers ​“play an essen­tial role in ensur­ing the best qual­ity of Italian extra vir­gin olive oil.”

The res­o­lu­tions also address updat­ing the 1996 law gov­ern­ing the dis­posal of veg­e­ta­tion water pro­duced dur­ing pro­cess­ing. Advances in sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy have opened up new ways to man­age and reuse these byprod­ucts.

“We also appre­ci­ate the government’s com­mit­ment to pro­mot­ing, at the European level, an amend­ment to the Common Market Organization (CMO) for olive oil, fol­low­ing the suc­cess­ful model of the wine CMO,” Pellegrino wrote in a note sent to Olive Oil Times.

“The cre­ation of sta­ble and per­ma­nent resources for invest­ment and pro­mo­tion is essen­tial to strengthen Made in Italy and counter grow­ing com­pe­ti­tion,” he added.

The plan’s key pro­vi­sions include sup­port­ing the recov­ery of Apulian olive groves dev­as­tated by Xylella fas­tidiosa over the past decade. Southern Puglia remains Italy’s most impor­tant olive oil-pro­duc­ing region.

One mea­sure includes sup­port for devel­op­ing 5,000 new hectares of Xylella-resis­tant olive groves.

Beyond Puglia, much remains to be done in a coun­try where diverse micro­cli­mates and soil con­di­tions cre­ate unique farm­ing land­scapes.

“Olive farm­ing in Italy is highly diverse. Some regions have inten­sive orchards, while oth­ers main­tain tra­di­tional ones,” Stefano Caroli, pres­i­dent of the Apulian Olive Oil Millers Association (Afp), told Olive Oil Times.

“In hilly or moun­tain­ous areas, olive orchards are part of the local her­itage. When neglected, they nei­ther pro­duce olives nor con­tribute to envi­ron­men­tal health as they could,” he added.

“We need to assign the right value to olive oil, mean­ing prices must sus­tain olive grow­ing,” Caroli said, empha­siz­ing the need for new com­mer­cial poli­cies based on ori­gin and pro­duc­tion prac­tices.

La Pietra esti­mates that 500,000 hectares of olive groves are cur­rently aban­doned across Italy.

“We need to iden­tify which can be brought back into pro­duc­tion and which require spe­cial pro­tec­tion for their role in the land­scape,” he said.

The sector’s asso­ci­a­tions must sub­mit their pro­pos­als to the Ministry of Agriculture by September for the final dis­cus­sion of the plan.

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