Spanish and Italian Producers Share Successes, Challenges at Duel Summits

Olive oil pro­duc­ers and experts gath­ered for duel­ing meet­ings in Sevilla and Rome last month.

In Seville, a panel of five experts con­cluded that Spanish olive groves are doing well, but warned against com­pla­cency.

The group included Silvia Capdevilla the deputy direc­tor gen­eral of the Ministry of Agriculture; Pablo Lería, head of the Food Department of Extenda; Álvaro Olavarría, man­ag­ing direc­tor of Oleoestepa; Victorino Vega, tech­ni­cal adviser of the IFAPA Alameda del Obispo de Córdoba; and Manuel Cera, the com­mer­cial direc­tor of Todolivo.

“The Spanish olive grove is in good health,” the panel con­cluded. ​“Although the sec­tor should take advan­tage of the cur­rent boom period to con­sol­i­date its posi­tion and work harder toward over­com­ing its chal­lenges.”

The experts touted the qual­ity of their olive oil, the region’s com­mit­ment to inno­va­tion, its envi­ron­men­tally friendly pro­grams and com­pet­i­tive nature. However, they also warned against emerg­ing com­pe­ti­tion in the export mar­ket and urged pro­duc­ers to be proac­tive in the fight against Xylella fas­tidiosa.

Meanwhile, mem­bers of the Italian Association of the Olive Oil Industry (Assitol) gath­ered to dis­cuss a much needed revi­tal­iza­tion of the nation’s olive oil indus­try. Assitol mem­bers fret­ted over declin­ing domes­tic con­sump­tion, decreased pro­duc­tion and increased com­pe­ti­tion from around the globe.

Assitol pres­i­dent, Angelo Cremonini, said that over­all qual­ity remained as high as ever, but the nation’s his­toric olive oil cul­ture was wan­ing.

“Although still cen­tral to our tables, olive oil has expe­ri­enced the cri­sis of con­sump­tion and it con­tin­ues to do so,” Cremonini said. ​“Olive oil is indeed a glob­al­ized prod­uct, but also triv­i­al­ized in its daily use, treated as a com­mon condi­ment.”

According to the International Olive Council (IOC), olive oil con­sump­tion in Italy decreased by 14 per­cent in the 2016/17 crop year. Only Greece and France expe­ri­enced larger drops in con­sump­tion.

Similar sen­ti­ments were echoed in at the meet­ing in Sevilla. Álvaro Olavarría, the man­ag­ing direc­tor of Oleoestepa — a coop­er­a­tive of extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duc­ers — warned that the triv­i­al­iza­tion of Spanish olive oil was respon­si­ble for domes­tic decreases in con­sump­tion.

Spain expe­ri­enced a seven per­cent decrease in olive oil con­sump­tion dur­ing the last crop year. The IOC pre­dicts olive oil con­sump­tion will rebound in the com­ing crop year, but to a lesser degree than last year’s drops.

Eduardo Martín, the sec­re­tary gen­eral of the Seville Agricultural Association of Young Farmers (ASAJA), said olive oil has been a fat accepted for many years by Spanish con­sumers. He believes the key to increas­ing con­sump­tion is through bet­ter mar­ket­ing.

“The recov­ery of domes­tic con­sump­tion can only be achieved through pro­mo­tional cam­paigns that empha­size the healthy char­ac­ter­is­tics of olive oil for the human body,” Martín said.

Pablo Lería, the head of the food depart­ment of Extenda, an Andalusian trade pro­mo­tion agency, said that despite decreased con­sump­tion, over­all qual­ity was as high as ever among Spanish extra vir­gin olive oil.

“Extra vir­gin olive oil is the type that makes up the major­ity of Spanish exports and is how the indus­try is pre­sented out­side our bor­ders,” he said. ​“Seven of the ten best extra vir­gin olive oils in the world today are Spanish.”

Spanish pro­duc­ers earned 109 awards at the 2017 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

However, Lería did not hide his con­cern of Spain’s notice­able decrease in olive oil exports to rival, Italy. Spain cur­rently exports 30 per­cent of its olive oil to Italy. Ten years ago, this fig­ure was 40 per­cent and demand for the quin­tes­sen­tial Spanish com­mod­ity con­tin­ues to decrease.

Back in Rome, Cremonini also warned Italian pro­duc­ers about the olive oil export mar­ket. He said that new com­pe­ti­tion from abroad threat­ened tra­di­tional trade rela­tion­ships. Countries such as Argentina, Australia, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey and the United States have become emerg­ing olive oil exporters.

“We are risk­ing rel­e­ga­tion. The mar­ket today wit­nesses the advance of new play­ers,” he said. ​“For years, we pre­ferred to look at (the tra­di­tional olive oil exporters rather than the emerg­ing ones) and decide together what oppor­tu­ni­ties of the mar­ket were there to be exploited. Now, we must make up for lost time.”

Despite these stark warn­ings, Cremonini said that Italy remains well placed in the world olive oil mar­ket because of its qual­ity prod­ucts.

“We have to work on qual­ity oil,” Cremonini said. ​“Where qual­ity must finally be under­stood as a good prod­uct, rich in hints and fla­vor and, at the same time, prof­itable for the entire sup­ply chain”.

According to fig­ures from Assitol, Italy’s olive oil indus­try made $3 bil­lion last year and its oils have the high­est IGP and DOP cer­ti­fi­ca­tions in Europe. These two cer­ti­fi­ca­tions are good indi­ca­tors of qual­ity awarded by the European Union (EU) to ver­ify that the olive oil was made exactly where and how the label indi­cates it was.

Italian pro­duc­ers were awarded more awards than those of any other coun­try at the 2017 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

“The mar­kets around the world are demand­ing a qual­ity prod­uct,” David Granieri, pres­i­dent of the Italian Olive Oil Interprofessional Organization, said. ​“While com­pe­ti­tion from other coun­tries is grow­ing and is increas­ingly com­pet­i­tive thanks to com­mer­cial prac­tices that, at times, encroach on ille­gal­ity.”

Granieri said that aggres­sive com­mer­cial behav­ior, trade restric­tions and fake news are used by ​“new” olive oil pro­duc­ers to pro­mote their brands on the world mar­ket.

A trade spokesper­son from the European Commision (EC) said she was unaware of any ille­gal trade prac­tices going on regard­ing olive oil within the EU.

Granieri said that none of these prob­lems for the Italian sec­tor are likely to go away any time soon and that the way for­ward is empha­siz­ing Italian brands as well as work­ing with the European Commission to ensure there is a level play­ing field for all pro­duc­ers.

“Recognizability, dis­tinc­tive­ness, bio­di­ver­sity all char­ac­ter­ize the Italian offer on the world mar­ket and are declined accord­ing to the con­tin­u­ous evo­lu­tion of a sec­tor that requires ade­quate struc­tures and leg­is­la­tion to move with the times,” Granierei said. ​“It is also impor­tant to inform con­sumers about the nutri­tional qual­i­ties of the prod­uct, often not cor­rectly per­ceived.”

Back in Spain, Martín called on the EC and all olive oil pro­duc­ing nations to work together and abide by the rules set by the IOC.

“It is essen­tial that all olive oil pro­duc­ing coun­tries play with the same rules of the IOC, and to achieve this, an effort by the European Commission itself is essen­tial to inten­sify con­tacts,” he said.

“And con­vince the rest of the coun­tries out­side of the EU about the neces­sity of hav­ing a homoge­nous and objec­tive norm for all processes and char­ac­ter­is­tics of olive oils, world­wide.”

• Assitol


• Asaja Sevilla