Spanish Growers Eye Indian Market for Table Olives

A new report from the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX) has iden­ti­fied India as a promis­ing mar­ket for the country’s table olive pro­duc­ers.

“Olive con­sump­tion in India is increas­ing, with a com­pound annual growth rate of 4.2 per­cent from 2024 to 2030,” ICEX offi­cials wrote in the report’s intro­duc­tion. ​“Spanish olives have a con­sol­i­dated pres­ence in India as they are the most con­sumed.”

Data from the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism demon­strates that India’s appetite for Spanish table olives has grown sig­nif­i­cantly.

In 2005, India imported 2,464 tons of table olives from Spain, val­ued at €400,000. By com­par­i­son, the world’s most pop­u­lous coun­try imported 3,813 tons in 2022, val­ued at €5.95 mil­lion.

Spain is India’s lead­ing sup­plier of olives, hold­ing 33 per­cent of the mar­ket share in pre­pared and pre­served olive cat­e­gories. Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, the United States, Italy and Portugal fol­low.

According to the ICEX report, ris­ing table olive con­sump­tion is pri­mar­ily fueled by young Indians. However, the 30 per­cent tar­iff on Spanish table imports impedes faster growth.

The aver­age price per kilo­gram of whole pit­ted green olives in India is 547.78 rupees (€6.10), while black olives are priced at 857.98 rupees (€9.56), slightly higher than the aver­age price in Spain.

Indian com­pa­nies import olives in bulk and dis­trib­ute them under their brand names, often empha­siz­ing their Spanish ori­gin. They dis­trib­ute the olives in the restau­rant and hos­pi­tal­ity sec­tors and retail, with increas­ing sales on e‑commerce plat­forms.

While some olive cul­ti­va­tion has started to take root in the arid north­west­ern Indian state of Rajasthan, annual pro­duc­tion is rel­a­tively low and unlikely to increase sig­nif­i­cantly soon.

Data from Vilcon, a strate­gic con­sul­tancy, indi­cate that India cur­rently boasts 20,000 hectares of olive groves and pro­duces about 700 tons of olive oil and 400 tons of table olives annu­ally.

Along with table olives, India is an emerg­ing mar­ket for Spanish olive oil pro­duc­ers.

According to Andalucía TRADE, there is sig­nif­i­cant mar­ket poten­tial in Asia. Export sales reached €31 mil­lion in the first four months of 2023, account­ing for 88 per­cent of Spain’s total exports to the con­ti­nent.

India is now the fourth-largest Asian mar­ket for olive oil exports from Andalusia. Spain’s largest olive oil-pro­duc­ing region is respon­si­ble for most of the country’s olive oil exports to Asia.

In the first four months of 2023, Andalusia exported €117 mil­lion of olive oil, account­ing for 70 per­cent of Spain’s total exports, while Catalonia (Spain’s fourth-largest pro­duc­ing region) fol­lowed with 18 per­cent. Reports indi­cate that olive oil sales in India exceeded €9.9 mil­lion dur­ing the same period, mark­ing a 31 per­cent increase.

India has also expe­ri­enced sig­nif­i­cant growth in the con­sump­tion of healthy foods, dri­ven by tra­di­tional dis­tri­b­u­tion and online com­merce. This trend is pri­mar­ily attrib­uted to the coun­try’s rapid dig­i­tal­iza­tion, which has enhanced e‑commerce growth.

Still, data from Vilcon show that 80 per­cent of Indians pur­chase olive oil in hyper­mar­kets and super­mar­kets, while 12 per­cent buy olive oil online.

Sumedha Dasgupta, a senior ana­lyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told Olive Oil Times that India is an increas­ingly pop­u­lar place for a range of Spanish com­pa­nies to do busi­ness.

“Given India’s mas­sive mar­ket and rapidly expand­ing econ­omy, Spanish enter­prises have sought to make invest­ments in India,” he said.

“Numerous Spanish busi­nesses have estab­lished them­selves [in the Indian mar­ket] through joint ven­tures, sub­sidiaries or other strate­gic alliances,” Dasgupta added. ​“Areas like biotech­nol­ogy, agri-food prod­ucts, med­i­cines and tourism can lead fur­ther growth in syn­ergy between the two nations.”

The ICEX report con­cluded that the keys to suc­cess in the Indian mar­ket include cater­ing to local con­sumer pref­er­ences, build­ing solid rela­tion­ships with dis­trib­u­tors and retail­ers and com­ply­ing with local reg­u­la­tions.

“Major dif­fi­cul­ties Spanish com­pa­nies look­ing to expand into India may face include com­pre­hend­ing local laws and cus­toms and cater­ing to the diverse require­ments and tastes of Indian cus­tomers and com­pa­nies,” Dasgupta said.

“A siz­able con­sumer base and fast-expand­ing econ­omy make India an allur­ing place to do busi­ness,” he con­cluded.

• ICEX
• Vilcon
• Oleorevista