Olive Council Data Shows Latest Harvest Results, Emerging Trends

Summary

Global olive oil pro­duc­tion is expected to increase by 32% in the 2024/25 crop year, with Spain, Tunisia, and Turkey dri­ving the growth. Traditional pro­duc­ing coun­tries like Spain and Greece have seen stag­nant growth and pro­duc­tion declines in the past five years, while emerg­ing pro­duc­ers out­side the Mediterranean basin, such as China and Saudi Arabia, have expe­ri­enced sig­nif­i­cant increases in olive oil pro­duc­tion with gov­ern­ment sup­port.

The International Olive Council fore­casts that global olive oil pro­duc­tion will climb to 3.38 mil­lion met­ric tons in the 2024/25 crop year, a 32 per­cent increase com­pared to last year and 13 per­cent above the five-year aver­age.

Spain, Tunisia and Turkey were the dri­ving forces behind this increase, with olive oil pro­duc­tion expected to rise by 51 per­cent to 1.3 mil­lion tons in Spain, 55 per­cent to 340,000 tons in Tunisia and 109 per­cent to a record-high 450,000 tons in Turkey com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year.

Producers in Spain attrib­uted the improved yield, which exceeded the five-year aver­age by nearly 17 per­cent, to good crop con­di­tions, includ­ing mod­er­ate spring tem­per­a­tures and a wet win­ter that recharged pre­vi­ously parched rivers and aquifers. 

Timely rain is antic­i­pated to spur Tunisian pro­duc­ers onto their bumper crop, which is esti­mated to be the largest since the record-high 440,000 tons in 2019/20 and tied for the sec­ond-high­est of all time.

On the north­east­ern coast of the Mediterranean, Turkish pro­duc­ers said favor­able grow­ing con­di­tions and the absence of olive pests in most pro­duc­ing regions were respon­si­ble for the har­vest rebound. 

Along with the sig­nif­i­cant har­vest rebound in Spain, farm­ers and millers in Greece and Portugal also expe­ri­enced pro­duc­tion increases. 

Olive oil yields are antic­i­pated to rise 43 per­cent in Greece com­pared to 2023/24 to 250,000 tons as many groves enter an ​‘on-year’ in the nat­ural alter­nate bear­ing cycle of the olive tree. However, there is con­cern that yields may be lower than ini­tially hoped.

On the other side of Europe, Portuguese farm­ers and millers antic­i­pate a steady pro­duc­tion rise of 21 per­cent com­pared to last sea­son, reach­ing 195,000 tons, the country’s sec­ond-high­est yield. Similarly to Spain, a wet win­ter, mod­er­ate spring tem­per­a­tures, and an ​‘on-year’ for many grow­ers resulted in the bumper crop.

European Union olive oil pro­duc­tion increased by 29 per­cent from 2023/24, reach­ing 1.97 mil­lion tons. 

Five olive oil-pro­duc­ing mem­ber states (includ­ing Cyprus and Slovenia) expe­ri­enced increased har­vests; pro­duc­tion remained the same in Croatia, while France and Italy expe­ri­enced a har­vest decline.

Italian olive oil pro­duc­tion is expected to fall to 224,000 tons, 32 per­cent below last year’s yield and 27 per­cent below the five-year aver­age.

While farm­ers and millers in north­ern and cen­tral Italy expe­ri­enced lower olive yields, pro­duc­ers in the south har­vested sig­nif­i­cant quan­ti­ties of olives. Still, they received a far lower oil yield than expected. Producers in Sicily reported lower quan­ti­ties of olives due to the ongo­ing drought.

On the other side of the Mediterranean, Morocco, Egypt and Algeria expe­ri­enced declines in pro­duc­tion. Moroccan olive oil yields fell for the third con­sec­u­tive crop year, drop­ping by 15 per­cent to 90,000 tons. 

Elsewhere in North Africa, pro­duc­tion in Algeria fell by nearly nine per­cent to 85,000 tons. Meanwhile, Egypt pro­duced 40,000 tons, an 11 per­cent decrease com­pared to last year.

From a broader scope, the IOC data demon­strate how the olive oil world is chang­ing. Globally, olive oil pro­duc­tion has risen 0.9 per­cent from an annual aver­age of 2.97 mil­lion tons from 2014/15 to 2018/19 to 3.00 mil­lion in the past five crop years. 

Despite the slight increase, there have been dra­matic changes in olive farm­ing and milling dis­tri­b­u­tion.

Traditional pro­duc­ing coun­tries have seen stag­nant growth and pro­duc­tion declines over the past five years com­pared to the pre­vi­ous five years (2014/15 to 2018/19).

Olive oil yields in Spain and Greece have fallen by 16 per­cent and slightly more than three per­cent, respec­tively, in that period. Meanwhile, olive oil pro­duc­tion in Italy, Morocco and Syria has seen far lower growth at 3.9 per­cent, 1.1 per­cent and 0.2 per­cent, respec­tively.

E.U. olive oil pro­duc­tion fell from an aver­age of 1.99 mil­lion tons annu­ally from 2014/15 to 2018/19 to 1.83 mil­lion tons in the past five crop years.

During those same inter­vals, the E.U. went from pro­duc­ing 67 per­cent of all olive oil glob­ally to 61 per­cent. 

Some of this declin­ing pro­duc­tion was made up by the 11 olive oil-pro­duc­ing coun­tries in North Africa and the Middle East, which went from pro­duc­ing 29 per­cent of global olive oil to 34 per­cent. 

Production growth across the region was dri­ven by Turkey and Tunisia, with annual aver­age pro­duc­tion ris­ing by 40 per­cent in Turkey and 20 per­cent in Tunisia between the past five years and the pre­vi­ous five years.

Egypt also expe­ri­enced a sig­nif­i­cant increase in olive oil pro­duc­tion, with yields ris­ing from 28,800 tons to 44,200 tons over the same period.

More mod­est increases have come from Algeria (17 per­cent), Israel (16 per­cent), Jordan (16 per­cent) and Palestine (15 per­cent). Lebanon was the only coun­try in the region to expe­ri­ence a sig­nif­i­cant decrease, with an 11 per­cent pro­duc­tion decline dur­ing the inter­val.

Olive oil pro­duc­tion has also increased 13 per­cent in South America, ris­ing from an annual aver­age of 50,100 tons from 2014/15 to 2018/19 to 56,700 tons. 

The most sig­nif­i­cant growth has come from Argentina (11 per­cent) and Chile (nine per­cent). In con­trast, Brazil and Uruguay have seen the most dra­matic increase, with pro­duc­tion sex­tu­pling in the for­mer and tripling in the lat­ter over the same inter­val. 

The most dra­matic increases from indi­vid­ual coun­tries came from emerg­ing pro­duc­ers out­side the Mediterranean basin, includ­ing Albania, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

In Saudi Arabia, olive oil pro­duc­tion went from an aver­age of 3,000 tons per annum from 2014/15 to 2018/19 to 14,500 tons in the past five har­vests, a 380-per­cent increase. 

The IOC esti­mates the king­dom will pro­duce a record-high 33,500 tons of olive oil in 2024/25.

Similarly, China saw annual olive oil pro­duc­tion soar by 71 per­cent in that period to 8,200 tons, while Iran expe­ri­enced olive oil pro­duc­tion increases of 70 per­cent, reach­ing 10,700 tons.

In the Mediterranean basin, Albania has also seen a dra­matic pro­duc­tion increase. The small south­ern European coun­try went from pro­duc­ing an aver­age of 11,200 tons from 2014/15 to 2018/19 to 19,700 tons in the pre­vi­ous five crop years. Furthermore, the IOC esti­mates Albania will pro­duce 30,000 tons of olive oil in 2024/25.

All four coun­tries have seen gov­ern­ment-sup­ported efforts to increase olive cul­ti­va­tion and olive oil pro­duc­tion, with China and Saudi Arabia plant­ing new super-high-den­sity and high-den­sity groves.