France's Harvest Exceeds Expectations Despite Production Dip

Summary

France’s 2024/25 olive har­vest sea­son had mixed results, with some regions expe­ri­enc­ing lower yields due to drought and humid­ity while oth­ers, like Alpes-Maritimes and Bouches-du-Rhône, saw more favor­able con­di­tions lead­ing to excep­tional har­vests. Producers in regions like Provence and Languedoc faced chal­lenges such as unpre­dictable weather, heat waves, and rain episodes, result­ing in declines of up to 50 per­cent in some cases. Despite vary­ing results, pro­duc­ers like Château d’Estoublon in Vallée des Baux-de-Provence saw sig­nif­i­cant increases in pro­duc­tion due to metic­u­lous prun­ing work and favor­able weather con­di­tions.

France’s 2024/25 crop year has pro­duced con­trast­ing results, with some regions strug­gling while oth­ers have had suc­cess­ful sea­sons. 

“Despite a strong har­vest in 2023/24, the expected bien­nial pro­duc­tion alter­na­tion was less pro­nounced this year, allow­ing for a higher-than-antic­i­pated olive yield,” said Alexandra Paris, the direc­tor of the pro­ducer asso­ci­a­tion France Olive’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions and eco­nom­ics depart­ment.

“However, oil yield was two to three points lower than usual aver­ages,” she added. ​“This decrease sig­nif­i­cantly impacted over­all olive oil pro­duc­tion, which is esti­mated to be between 5,000 and 5,200 met­ric tons for 2024/25, com­pared to 6,667 tons in 2023/24.”

According to data from the International Olive Council and France Olive, the coun­try has pro­duced an aver­age of 4,773 tons of olive oil annu­ally over the past half-decade.

The moun­tain­ous topog­ra­phy of south­ern France and its prox­im­ity to the Mediterranean Sea cre­ate many micro­cli­mates, fre­quently lead­ing to dis­parate har­vest results across the coun­try. The har­vest usu­ally runs from October to December, vary­ing by region and vari­ety. 

“As in pre­vi­ous years, pro­duc­tion var­ied across regions,” Paris con­firmed. ​“Drought par­tic­u­larly affected cer­tain areas, notably in Occitanie.”

Olive farm­ers in Gard, a depart­ment of Occitanie, expe­ri­enced lower yields than the pre­vi­ous year due to sum­mer drought and high autumn humid­ity. These con­di­tions caused the olives to absorb water, lead­ing to lower oil accu­mu­la­tion. 

“Additionally, in depart­ments such as Drôme, where pro­duc­tion had been excep­tional in 2023/24, the alter­na­tion effect was more pro­nounced this year, lead­ing to a nat­ural decline in har­vest vol­umes,” Paris said. 

Producers across Provence and Languedoc, in Occitaine, con­firmed they faced dif­fi­cult cli­matic con­di­tions, includ­ing unpre­dictable weather, heat waves and rain episodes dur­ing the flow­er­ing. Some farm­ers reported declines of up to 50 per­cent.

“Some regions expe­ri­enced a strong sea­son, par­tic­u­larly the Alpes-Maritimes and Bouches-du-Rhône, where con­di­tions were more favor­able,” Paris said.

In Grasse, a sub­pre­fec­ture in Alpes-Maritimes, a local coop­er­a­tive reported ​“an excep­tional cam­paign,” accord­ing to its pres­i­dent, Jean-Pierre Franchi.

After pur­chas­ing new equip­ment, the 97-mem­ber coop­er­a­tive pro­duced 63,600 liters of olive oil, the high­est total since 1954.

About 100 kilo­me­ters to the west in the Vallée des Baux-de-Provence, Château d’Estoublon also expe­ri­enced a pro­duc­tion increase com­pared to the 2023/24 crop year.

“The olive har­vest started in the sec­ond week of October and fin­ished in the sec­ond week of December, with Salonenque being har­vested first and Picholine last,” tech­ni­cal direc­tor Victor Joyeux said.

“We saw a sig­nif­i­cant increase in ton­nage this year, with 32 per­cent more olives har­vested com­pared to 2023, thanks to the metic­u­lous prun­ing work on our trees in pre­vi­ous years,” he added.

Joyeux said the award-win­ning pro­duc­er’s​sea­son had gone smoothly, ben­e­fit­ing from a wet year. ​“We nar­rowly avoided a late frost event in November, and our Picholine parcels were untouched,” he added.

Joyeux cited tim­ing as the most sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge the com­pany faced. The har­vest team care­fully picked the olives of each vari­ety at opti­mal ripeness.

“We are also for­tu­nate to have our mill on the estate, which enables us to press the olives at the ideal time, ensur­ing the high­est qual­ity oils,” he added.

In the neigh­bor­ing Donce Valley, Domaine Clos des Faucons also com­pleted its har­vest in December. Despite har­vest­ing more olives, the olive oil yield was lower than the pre­vi­ous har­vest.

“The atyp­i­cal weather con­di­tions at the end of the sum­mer made this cam­paign par­tic­u­larly demand­ing, with haz­ards that are dif­fi­cult to pre­dict,” the com­pany wrote on LinkedIn. ​“This reflects the chal­lenges faced this sea­son by our estate, but also by many fel­low olive grow­ers.”

Meanwhile, fel­low Provençal pro­ducer Domaine de Gerbaud had a mod­est olive yield com­pared to their abun­dant 2023/24 har­vest, but the qual­ity remained high. 

Despite 700 mil­lime­ters of rain­fall, the far­m’s ele­va­tion on the lower slopes of the Luberon mas­sif helped mit­i­gate humid­ity issues. 

Co-owner Louisa Sherman described the har­vest­ing period as excit­ing and demand­ing, requir­ing a final effort to cre­ate high-qual­ity olive oil.

“It’s always a hec­tic time,” she told Olive Oil Times. ​“Tractors, pick­ers, nets and equip­ment arrive at the prop­erty, cre­at­ing so much noise despite our use of bat­tery-oper­ated rakes. Large con­tain­ers for olives are posi­tioned beneath the olive trees.”

“We har­vest olives at dif­fer­ent times based on vari­ety to pro­duce high-qual­ity oils with fresh aro­mas and bal­anced bit­ter­ness and pun­gency,” she added.

Indeed, har­vest­ing olives at the right time for each vari­ety is cru­cial for pro­duc­ing high-qual­ity olive oils with desir­able fla­vors and aro­mas. 

“When the har­vest­ing cam­paign began, the olives had a very high water con­tent, result­ing in low oil yields,” Sherman said. ​“Their advanced aro­matic matu­rity com­pared to lipo­ge­n­e­sis wors­ened the sit­u­a­tion.”

“The wind expo­sure ensured that our groves dried off well, lim­it­ing cryp­togamic dis­ease devel­op­ment, ” she added. ​“We also did not suf­fer severely from olive fruit fly dam­age. Healthy olives pro­duce good qual­ity olive oil!”

Domaine de Gerbaud blends Aglandau, Salonenque, Verdale and Gossane olives to cre­ate a ​‘green, fruity oil,” which earned a Silver Award at the 2025 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

Daniel Dawson con­tributed to this report.

• Nice Martin