`Indian Olive Oil Market on the Rise - Olive Oil Times
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enEnglishfrFrançaiselελληνικάdeDeutscheitItalianozh-CN中文ptPortuguêsesEspañoltrTürkçehrHrvatskija日本語hiहिंदी

Indian Olive Oil Market on the Rise

By Danielle Putier
Sep. 25, 2014 10:07 UTC

Encouraged by a rapidly expand­ing mid­dle class and increas­ing aware­ness of the health ben­e­fits of olive oil, the Indian con­sumer is join­ing the inter­na­tional salute to olive oil. And the Indian gov­ern­ment is fol­low­ing suit.

The cur­rent rate of Indian con­sump­tion stands at a mod­est 100 – 110 tonnes annu­ally, but accord­ing to a recent report under the wing of Economic and Commercial Office of the Embassy of Spain in New Delhi, India’s olive oil mar­ket is antic­i­pated to rise at a steady pace of 25 per­cent per year, a fig­ure they are expected to sus­tain for the next five years.

ICEX cred­its the boom in con­sump­tion to the suc­cess of Spanish pro­mo­tional olive oil cam­paigns, while Italy, its com­peti­tor, has long been syn­ony­mous with olive oil in India. Local pro­duc­tion has been a slow starter, due in part to the suc­cess of the rival­ing rice oil mar­ket. But as con­sump­tion con­tin­ues on an upward trend, offi­cials are seek­ing to expand in-house pro­duc­tion, specif­i­cally in the North where the demand is high.

Experimental cites estab­lished over the last 7 years in the north­ern regions of Punjab and Rajasthan have so far shown promis­ing results. According to Agriculture Minister Prabhu Lal Saini, ​“We are encour­ag­ing farm­ers to grow olive and giv­ing them free plants and tech­ni­cal assis­tance and advice to make the farm­ing finan­cial viable. They are also being given buy-back guar­an­tee. The crop starts giv­ing fruits in 4 – 6 years and con­tin­ues for long if main­tained prop­erly.”

The Indian gov­ern­ment has assigned 11 more dis­tricts to the olive cul­ti­va­tion project. ​“With this, peo­ple will have the taste of Olives grown in Rajasthan. We are plan­ning to sell the olive oil under the brand name ​‘Raj Olive Oil’,” Saini said.

ICEX acknowl­edges the new growth as an inter­na­tional oppor­tu­nity say­ing the new sites, ​“could be a good busi­ness oppor­tu­nity for Spanish com­pa­nies to estab­lish through joint ven­tures in the coun­try and sell their know-how to local com­pa­nies”.

Up until now, olive oil aware­ness has pri­mar­ily been har­nessed by India’s olive oil advo­cacy body, the Indian Olive Association, who came together 7 years ago to assim­i­late the growth and changes in the country’s mar­ket.

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