`Spain Enjoys Robust Olive Oil Sales, But Not Prices - Olive Oil Times
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Spain Enjoys Robust Olive Oil Sales, But Not Prices

By Julie Butler
Apr. 1, 2014 20:58 UTC
Andalusia, Spain

Spain’s olive oil exports con­tinue at record lev­els and there’s also talk of a new record in pro­duc­tion this sea­son with more than 1.5 mil­lion tons already pro­duced in the five months to February 28, the lat­est fig­ures show.
Since the start of this sea­son on October 1, the world’s biggest olive oil pro­ducer has processed 7.7 mil­lion tons of olives, with an aver­age yield of 20 per­cent. Exports total 413,400 tons – up a third on the aver­age for the pre­vi­ous four sea­sons – and domes­tic con­sump­tion 255,400 tons, though the February fig­ures for both are pro­vi­sional.

Also accord­ing to Spain’s Food Chain Information Agency (AICA), the country’s table olive sea­son, which started in September, has seen 570,030 tons pro­duced, a 16 per­cent rise on last sea­son, but sales are down 7 per­cent.

And AICA’s lat­est mar­ket data shows that at the end of February, Spain held stocks of nearly 643,000 tons of table olives and 1.2 mil­lion tons of olive oil.

Prices higher in Tunisia than in Spain

While pro­duc­tion has swung back up in Spain after last year’s dis­mal result, poor har­vests are the lot this year for its Mediterranean neigh­bors Greece, Tunisia and Turkey.

As noted in the International Olive Council’s February newslet­ter, the aver­age extra vir­gin olive oil ex-mill price in Spain is now not only below that of Italy and Greece but also Tunisia. Olioofficina magazine’s indica­tive prices at March 25 show a range for extra vir­gin olive oil in Greece of €2.80 – 2.85/kg, Tunisia €2.35 – 2.40/kg and Spain €1.95 – 2.02/kg.

Citizen peti­tion power

AICA, mean­while, is the first agency of the Spanish gov­ern­ment to open a pro­file on Change.org, which describes itself as ​“the world’s largest peti­tion plat­form.” AICA said it did so ​“in order to respond to cit­i­zen requests con­cern­ing com­pli­ance with new laws pro­mot­ing bet­ter func­tion­ing of the food chain.”

Isabel García Tejerina, gen­eral sec­re­tary of Agriculture and Food in the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment (MAGRAMA), said the pro­file would be ​“a use­ful and valu­able tool for food com­pa­nies and cit­i­zens alike” and was moti­vated by the department’s desire ​“to be trans­par­ent in our actions and open to pub­lic participation…including via new com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­ogy.”

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