Olive Oil Production in Leading Countries Forecast to Fall to 2.65 Million Tons

Summary

Experts pre­dict that olive oil pro­duc­tion in six major coun­tries could reach 2.65 mil­lion met­ric tons in the 2025/26 crop year, despite a decrease from the pre­vi­ous year. Factors such as weather con­di­tions in the upcom­ing months will play a cru­cial role in deter­min­ing the final yield, with prices fluc­tu­at­ing accord­ingly in coun­tries like Spain, Italy, and Greece.

Experts and ana­lysts from six of the world’s largest olive oil-pro­duc­ing coun­tries esti­mate that pro­duc­tion in these coun­tries could reach 2.65 mil­lion met­ric tons in the 2025/26 crop year.

This year’s olive oil yield in Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia, and Turkey is expected to fall com­pared to the 2.94 mil­lion tons pro­duced in the 2024/25 crop year. Still, it is expected to exceed the five-year aver­age of 2.41 mil­lion tons. 

While the experts and ana­lysts stressed that it remains too early to know how the har­vest will unfold, the cli­mate in the next two months is set to play a deter­min­ing fac­tor.

According to Spanish olive oil expert Paco Garmen, the 2025/26 crop year is already under­way in Spain, with some farm­ers in the country’s two most pro­lific olive oil-pro­duc­ing provinces, Córdoba and Jaén, already begin­ning to har­vest. 

“When last year’s har­vest ended, we saw spec­tac­u­lar flow­er­ing — the trees were white,” Garmen told atten­dees of the International Dialogue on Olive Growing. ​“At first, peo­ple were talk­ing about 1.8 to 1.9 mil­lion tons, but fruit set was not as good as expected. Then esti­mates fell to around 1.7 or 1.65 mil­lion tons, and cur­rently I think we are closer to 1.5 to 1.55 mil­lion.”

Garmen cited Spain’s extra­or­di­nar­ily hot and dry sum­mer as one of the main cul­prits for the steadily declin­ing pro­jec­tion and warned that the country’s final yield would depend on whether it rains in the rest of September and October. Forecasts for the rest of this month sug­gest rain is unlikely. 

As a result of declin­ing expec­ta­tions, Garmen said prices at ori­gin in Spain have risen from their mid-sum­mer lows, climb­ing to around €4.50 and €5.00 per liter. Supermarket prices remain ele­vated at €5.50, with some offer­ing dis­counts as low as €3.70 to €4.00 per liter.

Across the Mediterranean Sea, Andrea Marino, the gen­eral man­ager of Federolio, informed the con­fer­ence that Italian pro­duc­ers antic­i­pate pro­duc­tion to reach approx­i­mately 300,000 tons.

“Looking ahead to the next cam­paign, it’s still uncer­tain,” he said. ​“The weather will be deci­sive and can change things a lot from week to week, but we expect roughly 300,000 tons.

“Last year, a low-pro­duc­tion year, Italy pro­duced 248,000 to 250,000 tons. This year, out­put should rise again,” he added. ​“That puts us more or less at the five-year aver­age, with nat­ural ups and downs depend­ing on con­di­tions.”

Marino said he expects pro­duc­tion to con­tinue to rise in the north of the coun­try, while yields in the south con­tinue to decline.

“Xylella fas­tidiosa remains a very seri­ous prob­lem, dev­as­tat­ing Puglia — the country’s top pro­duc­ing region, which accounts for more than 60 per­cent of Italy’s olive oil,” he said.

While olive oil prices in Italy con­tinue to sit well above its Mediterranean peers, expec­ta­tions of another strong har­vest in Spain and recov­ery in Italy have led prices at ori­gin to decline slightly.

“At ori­gin, Italian extra vir­gin olive oil is about €9.60 per kilo­gram, down from €10 before the sum­mer,” Marino said. ​“Right now, super­mar­ket prices are around €12 to €12.20 per liter,” for Italian extra vir­gin olive oil.

Continuing east­ward, Vasoleios Zampounis, the founder of con­sul­tancy Axion Agrotiki, fore­casted that Greek pro­duc­tion could reach 240,000 to 250,000 tons, sim­i­lar to the pre­vi­ous har­vest. 

However, he warned the final yield would be very depen­dent on whether rains arrive in September and October.

“We are depend­ing on whether or not, dur­ing September and October, we will see rain,” Zampounis said. ​“The sit­u­a­tion is not very good. We need rain. We have a lack of rain in most places in Greece.”

Perhaps as a result of the uncer­tain har­vest fore­casts, Zampounis added that prices remain high both at retail and ori­gin.

“ The aver­age price of the extra vir­gin olive oil in the Greek super­mar­ket at the moment stands at €7.77 per liter,” he said, adding that prices in some retail­ers have fallen as low as €6.30 per liter.

“Currently, prices at ori­gin are as high as €7.10 per liter in Laconia, with other regions of the coun­try record­ing slightly lower prices at €4.30 to €5.10 per liter,” he added.

Zampounis cited the 15 per­cent tar­iffs imposed by the United States on olive oil and table olive exports as one of the main chal­lenges fac­ing the sec­tor in Greece and called for more edu­ca­tion to pro­mote con­sump­tion even if prices have to rise.

“It’s very impor­tant to have bet­ter coor­di­na­tion with the sci­en­tists to demon­strate the healthy prop­er­ties of the olive oil to coun­ter­bal­ance higher prices in the United States,” he said.

Back on the Iberian penin­sula, Jeremias Tavora, the gen­eral man­ager of Olivo Gestão, said Portuguese pro­duc­ers antic­i­pate a sim­i­lar har­vest this year to last season’s bumper crop.

“Estimated pro­duc­tion this year is very sim­i­lar to last year, around 170,000 to 180,000 tons,” he said. ​“Flowering was good and fruit set was decent, though not per­fect, so out­put is expected to be close to last year’s level.”

Tavora stated that the increase in high-den­sity and super-high-den­sity olive groves, par­tic­u­larly in the south­ern region of Alentejo, is dri­ving the steady rise in Portuguese pro­duc­tion.

“Today, Portugal has 365,000 hectares of olive groves,” he said. ​“The largest area is in Alentejo, with 190,000 to 200,000 hectares, and the total area con­tin­ues to grow each year.”

“It’s not just that tra­di­tional or inten­sive olive groves are being con­verted to hedgerow-style plan­ta­tions — new areas are also being planted,” Tavora added. ​“This growth is dri­ven by the avail­abil­ity of land and the favor­able con­di­tions here in Portugal.”

Regarding olive oil prices, Tavora noted that super­mar­ket prices have yet to decrease, with a liter of extra-vir­gin olive oil retail­ing for approx­i­mately €7 per liter.

“At ori­gin, the lat­est deals were at €4.55 per liter,” he added. ​“Availability is very lim­ited, with ware­houses nearly empty.”

On the oppo­site end of the Mediterranean basin, the for­mer head of the econ­omy and pro­mo­tion unit at the International Olive Council, Ender Gunduz, said pro­duc­tion in Turkey is expected to fall after last year’s record har­vest.

“For the next cam­paign, start­ing stocks are expected to be 390,000 tons,” he said. ​“Production is expected to drop by half, to around 200,000 tons, though it could vary slightly.” 

Along with many pro­duc­ers enter­ing an ​‘off-year’ in the nat­ural alter­nate bear­ing cycle of the olive tree, Gunduz pointed to the recent rule allow­ing com­pa­nies to remove olive trees for min­ing. 

“Until now, Turkish olive groves were pro­tected from exploita­tion for resources such as min­er­als, gold or coal,” he con­firmed. ​“However, the cur­rent gov­ern­ment has lifted this restric­tion, allow­ing these lands to be opened. This may reduce pro­duc­tion, as many groves that received sup­port over the past ten years could be affected in upcom­ing cam­paigns.”

Continuing with his­toric trends, Gunduz said prices ar ori­gin in Turkey remain well below Mediterranean peers, sit­ting ​“between €3.50 and €3.80 per liter.” 

“Current retail prices are sim­i­lar to those in Spain, rang­ing from pri­vate-label to gourmet oils,” he said. ​“Private-label oils are around €5 per liter, while other brands range from €6.20 to €8.20 per liter.”

On the south­ern banks of the Mediterranean Sea, Yamna Erraach, an expert in agri­food mar­kets in Tunisia, said there are no offi­cial esti­mates for the upcom­ing har­vest, but sug­gested that con­di­tions in the olive groves are sim­i­lar to last year’s.

“Regarding fore­casts for the next cam­paign, no offi­cial data have yet been released by the Ministry of Agriculture,” she con­firmed. ​“Nevertheless, prospects are pos­i­tive, with pro­duc­tion expected to remain very close to this year’s lev­els, with only min­i­mal poten­tial decreases.”

“[In the 2024/25 crop year] pro­duc­tion was approx­i­mately 340,000 tons, com­pared to 180,000 tons in the pre­vi­ous cam­paign, cul­ti­vated on nearly 2,000,000 hectares,” Erraach added. ​“Prices at ori­gin are close to €4, while super­mar­ket prices range between €4.50 and €15 per liter,” depend­ing on the qual­ity.

Looking ahead, she said Tunisia must con­tinue to invest in the olive oil sec­tor and cap­i­tal­ize on its arid cli­mate and inher­ent resis­tance to pests, par­tic­u­larly the per­ni­cious olive fruit fly, to expand organic pro­duc­tion fur­ther.

“The impor­tance of organic olive oil is worth high­light­ing, as it rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant share of both pro­duc­tion and exports,” she con­cluded. ​“Additionally, the gov­ern­ment has recently been pro­mot­ing olive oil stor­age to help reg­u­late prices, both in the local and inter­na­tional mar­kets.”