World Olive Oil Production Exceeds 3.2M Tons

According to the lat­est pro­duc­tion fig­ures released by the International Olive Council (IOC), world olive oil out­put for the 2015/2016 sea­son has been bet­ter than ini­tially expected. This year’s total, esti­mated to exceed 3.225 mil­lion tons, will come close to the record 3.271 mil­lion tons pro­duced in the 2013/2014 pro­duc­tion sea­son.

This year’s global out­put is 33 per­cent higher than the pre­vi­ous sea­son, rep­re­sent­ing an increase of 790,500 tons.

The world’s largest olive oil pro­duc­ers, Spain and Italy, have had a strong sea­son with a 65 per­cent increase in pro­duc­tion for Spain, and a 112 per­cent increase for Italy com­pared to the 2014/2015 sea­son which was the worst expe­ri­enced by both coun­tries in the past two decades. Greece has also seen a slight increase of 3 per­cent, while Portugal is poised for a 65 per­cent rise in pro­duc­tion.

A few olive oil pro­duc­ing coun­tries out­side the European Union like Algeria, Morocco, Libya, and Egypt will have only slight increases, with the most sig­nif­i­cant fig­ures com­ing from Argentina, which has seen a 317 per­cent boost in its pro­duc­tion. Modestly higher results were noted in Iran (30 per­cent) and Jordan (26 per­cent).

Meanwhile, a few coun­tries have expe­ri­enced a decrease in pro­duc­tion, notably Tunisia with 59 per­cent less than last year, which was a record pro­duc­tion for the North African coun­try. Turkey, Israel, Albania, and Lebanon are also expe­ri­enc­ing a decline in olive oil pro­duc­tion for the 2015/2016 sea­son.

• IOC May 2016 Newsletter