U.S. Olive Oil Imports on Record-Setting Pace

The United States is on pace to import a record-set­ting amount of olive oil this year, accord­ing to fig­ures released today by the International Olive Council (IOC).

For the first 11 months of the 2015/16 crop year, the U.S. imported 306,844 tons of olive oil and, for the first time, more of it was from Spain than Italy.
See Also:Global Olive Oil Production, 1990 – 2015 (IOC)
In fact, accord­ing to the IOC, Spanish exports to the States were up 43 per­cent over last year. A strong har­vest sea­son, com­pet­i­tive pric­ing and aggres­sive pro­mo­tional efforts are among other fac­tors that led to the dom­i­nant results for the world’s largest olive oil pro­ducer.

The U.S. con­sumes more than 10 per­cent of the global olive oil sup­ply with per capita con­sump­tion main­tain­ing at around one liter per year.

Another huge mar­ket where Spain is the dom­i­nant sup­plier is China, which imported 11 per­cent more olive oil than dur­ing the same period year before. More than three-fourths of Chinese olive oil imports were vir­gin grade.

After a period of falling imports, Australia brought in 11 per­cent more olive oil from abroad than the year before but Brazil, which has been seen as a fast-grow­ing New World mar­ket, posted a decline of 4 per­cent for the 11-month period.

• IOC October 2016 Newsletter