`Sales of Packaged Organic Olive Oil from Andalusia Sharply Higher - Olive Oil Times

Sales of Packaged Organic Olive Oil from Andalusia Sharply Higher

By Julie Butler
Sep. 6, 2011 20:55 UTC

Sales of pack­aged organic olive oil from Andalusia grew nearly 30 per­cent in 2010, almost equal­ing that of the region’s bulk olive oil sales.

Overall, sales of Andalusian organic olive oil were up 7.17 per­cent over the pre­vi­ous year, reach­ing a total of 9.6 mil­lion kilos, of which nearly 4 mil­lion were pack­aged and the rest bulk.

According to Europa Press, while 2.8 mil­lion kilos were sold in Spain, the rest was exported to a total of 43 coun­tries, of which France is still the biggest buyer. Last year the French soaked up 1.7 mil­lion kilos and showed an increased inter­est in the pack­aged vari­ety, with those sales up about 104 per­cent to 511,017 kilos.

No such trend in Italy, the next main buyer, which took 1.6 mil­lion kilos and all of them bulk. According to Francisco Casero, pres­i­dent of the Andalusian Committee of Ecologic Agriculture (CAAE), and Francisco Zurera, the Córdoba del­e­gate of Andalusia’s Agriculture and Fisheries depart­ment, Italy later sells the oil as its own,” above all in the United States.

However, Andalusia is itself hav­ing a big impact in this (American) mar­ket, sell­ing 337,734 kilos of its pack­aged organic olive oil and a fur­ther 141,271 kilos of bulk oil,” they said.

Meanwhile Japan, the third biggest importer of Andalusia’s organic oil, is the biggest buyer of the pack­aged sort. Japan bought nearly one mil­lion kilos last year, of which the vast major­ity (930,212 kilos) were pack­aged.

Andalusia now devotes 46,902 hectares to organic olive oil pro­duc­tion, up 8,885 hectares on 2009.

Most of Spain’s olive oil exports are still in bulk but trade in pack­aged oil – in con­tain­ers of less than 5 liters usu­ally mar­keted directly to con­sumers, restau­rants, and gourmet shops – has dou­bled in the last five years and the upward trend con­tin­ues.

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