Olive Oil Consumption in Italy, Greece Expected to Grow Amid Global Decline

Olive oil con­sump­tion in Italy and Greece — two of the world’s largest pro­duc­ers — is expected to rise in the cur­rent crop year, accord­ing to data from the International Olive Council (IOC).

Meanwhile, con­sump­tion in Spain and other pro­duc­ing coun­tries is antic­i­pated to slow down. Overall olive oil con­sump­tion in the European Union, respon­si­ble for nearly half of global con­sump­tion, is pro­jected to fall con­sid­er­ably, from 1.6 to 1.4 mil­lion tons.

Experts believe the unusual fore­cast, which has not been seen in the last five crop years, is a con­se­quence of con­verg­ing fac­tors.

Among them is the Mediterranean mega-drought, severely impact­ing olive pro­duc­tion in Spain and other coun­tries in the west­ern half of the basin.

Additionally, high infla­tion has reduced house­hold food bud­gets across the con­ti­nent. Both infla­tion and the drought have resulted in ris­ing olive oil prices too. These fac­tors and the ongo­ing uncer­tainty of future har­vests have affected con­sump­tion.

According to the IOC, Greek olive oil con­sump­tion will rise to 110,000 tons, up from 106,300 tons in the 2021/22 crop year but below the rolling five-year aver­age.

“We all know olive oil is a huge part of Greek cul­ture. Greece is among the lead­ing coun­tries in terms of per capita con­sump­tion of olive oil world­wide,” Stella Theodosiou, deputy direc­tor of the Greek olive oil pro­ducer asso­ci­a­tion, Sevitel, told Olive Oil Times.

Theodosiou said per capita con­sump­tion in the coun­try was esti­mated to be 11 kilo­grams per per­son in 2019/20. That year, Greek con­sump­tion was exceeded only by Spain, with 11.2 kilo­grams per per­son.

Theodosiou added that a 2021 study com­mis­sioned by the Greek Food Authority showed the ubiq­uity of extra vir­gin olive oil in Greek house­holds and con­firmed the role of small-scale pro­duc­tion for domes­tic con­sump­tion.

“The major­ity of house­holds, 57 per­cent, reported that they use extra vir­gin olive oil pro­cured from rel­a­tives or friends,” she said. ​“Branded olive oils appeared to be linked to access to olive oil pro­duc­tion, so 59 per­cent of those with­out access buy branded olive oils, com­pared to a very small num­ber, 7 per­cent, of those who have access.”

Even so, the pic­ture of olive oil con­sump­tion in Greece has sig­nif­i­cantly changed in recent years.

“Although the accep­tance of olive oil is increas­ing, the Covid-19 pan­demic and the increase of infla­tion directly affected con­sump­tion habits and finally changed them,” Theodosiou said.

According to Sevitel, a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge for inter­nal mar­ket devel­op­ment is the pre­vail­ing unbranded bulk sales, the ​“qual­ity and safety [of which] are dis­puted,” Theodosiou said.

“Many years of research [indi­cate] that the sale of bulk olive oil is a prac­tice that does not guar­an­tee food safety in con­trast to stan­dard­iza­tion and pack­ag­ing up to 5 liters,” Theodosiou said.

Sevitel experts believe the olive sec­tor must estab­lish a long-term strate­gic plan soon.

“We con­sider Greece to be at a crit­i­cal point to decide the con­tent of a national strat­egy that will ensure the per­spec­tive and the future of Greek olive oil,” Theodosiou said.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Ionian Sea, the IOC pro­jected that Italian olive oil con­sump­tion would grow from 481,700 tons in 2021/22 to 486,500 tons in the cur­rent crop year.

Despite a sig­nif­i­cant decline in pro­duc­tion due to drought and heat­waves, olive oil prices remain­ing high and infla­tion hurt­ing house­hold bud­gets, con­sumers were not deterred from invest­ing in olive oil bot­tles.

“The sce­nario for the olive oil sec­tor is not the best,” Andrea Carrassi, the gen­eral direc­tor of the Italian Association of the Edible Oil Industry (Assitol), told Olive Oil Times. ​“The 2022/23 crop year, even if not con­cluded yet, will enter his­tory as greatly defy­ing expec­ta­tions.”

“In an off-year [in the nat­ural alter­nate bear­ing cycle of the olive tree], we lost 50 per­cent of the national olive oil pro­duc­tion to drought and extreme weather,” he added.

A recent study from Nomisma, a con­sul­tancy, inves­ti­gated the pro­gres­sive reduc­tion of Italian olive oil pro­duc­tion in the last few decades. Between 2010 and 2012, Italian pro­duc­tion exceeded 500,000 tons. However, pro­duc­tion vol­umes have fallen to 300,000 tons or below since 2020.

To counter the trend, farm­ers, millers, bot­tlers, exporters and the Ministry of Agriculture are work­ing to estab­lish an inter­pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tion.

The goal of the inter­pro­fes­sional would be to boost pro­duc­tion through inno­va­tion, pro­tect­ing tra­di­tional pro­duc­ers, stim­u­lat­ing olive tree cul­ti­va­tion and cur­tail­ing the spread of the deadly olive tree bac­te­ria, Xylella fas­tidiosa.

“The indus­try is used to cope with the national pro­duc­tion deficit, but [this sea­son] it had to face way more chal­leng­ing adver­si­ties than expected,” Carrassi said. ​“Olive farm­ing through the Mediterranean has suf­fered, not only in Italy.”

Assitol esti­mated that con­sump­tion would rise to 600,000 tons, under­scor­ing the dis­par­ity between con­sump­tion and local pro­duc­tion, which fell to 235,000 tons in 2022/23.

“To this, we must add the trou­bles trig­gered by the ris­ing costs of paper and glass, cru­cial pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als,” Carrassi said.

He added that the ​“mod­er­ate increase in olive oil con­sump­tion in Italy esti­mated by the IOC is good news, given the highly chal­leng­ing moment.”

“We have always been among the first posi­tions for olive oil con­sump­tion,” Carrassi said. ​“During the Covid-19 pan­demic, Italians increased their pur­chases of healthy food prod­ucts, includ­ing extra vir­gin olive oil, and this trend con­tin­ues.”

Still, the Assitol gen­eral direc­tor under­lined how much more must be done to make olive oil con­sump­tion glob­ally grow.

“We have to high­light how this beloved prod­uct accounts for less than 5 per­cent of the global food fat con­sump­tion,” Carrassi said. ​“We have so much to do to pro­mote this extra­or­di­nary food abroad. In Italy, we need to over­come the idea that olive oil is just an ingre­di­ent, giv­ing value in any pos­si­ble way to its sen­sory and healthy qual­i­ties.”