Olive Oil is Becoming One of Asia’s Most Popular Ingredients

According to mar­ket research firm Mordor Intelligence, the Asia-Pacific olive oil mar­ket is esti­mated to grow at an annual com­pounded rate of 4.2 per­cent from 2020 to 2025.

This puts the Mediterranean diet sta­ple on pace to become one of the region’s most pop­u­lar ingre­di­ents.

However, evi­dence sug­gests that local con­sumers still pre­fer imported olive oils, despite the continent’s pro­duc­ers mak­ing enor­mous strides to improve their prod­uct and win awards in inter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tions.

Pablo Canamasas is an Argentinian agro­nomic engi­neer who pro­duced Longnan Xiangyu Olive Development Company’s robust Picholine, which earned a Gold award at the 2017 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

He told Bloomberg News that locally-pro­duced olive oils in China are not rec­og­nized at home as they are abroad.

“Crazy as it may sound, the Chinese pub­lic has the same view we out­siders have on Chinese prod­ucts: that they are of poor qual­ity,” he said.

In June 2019, the Direct China Chamber of Commerce (DCCC) reported that Chinese con­sumers val­ued the qual­ity and high food safety stan­dards asso­ci­ated with imported oils more than those pro­duced domes­ti­cally.

At the time of the study, China imported 90 per­cent of its olive oil from Spain, and con­sumers said they were more than will­ing to pay the pre­mium for the imported prod­uct.

The International Olive Council esti­mates that olive oil con­sump­tion in China in the 2020/21 crop year will reach 66,000 tons, up from 57,500 tons in 2018/19. Of that total, China imported 58,500 tons and pro­duced 7,500 tons.

“Extra vir­gin olive oil con­sump­tion in China is increas­ing at a sig­nif­i­cant pace,” Canamasas said. ​“Particularly in big cities and in a seg­ment of the pop­u­la­tion aged 25 to 30 that has trav­eled abroad and is more exposed to the Mediterranean diet or has heard of it.”

According to the DCCC, con­sumers’ pref­er­ence for imported oils has been par­tially fueled by lower olive oil prices in Europe and tar­iff reduc­tions for Italian olive oil imports.

The cham­ber high­lighted that Italy, Greece and Tunisia have adapted quickly to evolv­ing Chinese eat­ing habits, includ­ing local con­sumers’ increas­ing aware­ness of healthy diets and evolv­ing cook­ing trends.

Along with these fac­tors, China’s grow­ing mid­dle class also was cred­ited for the grow­ing trend.

According to Bloomberg News, the increas­ing pop­u­lar­ity of olive oil in Asia has also spurred pro­duc­ers in the region to make more olive oil.

Japan’s olive oil exports rose to 276 tons in 2019, increas­ing 209 per­cent com­pared to 2018 and 545 per­cent com­pared to 2014.

Japanese pro­duc­ers also enjoyed a record year at the 2020 NYIOOC, earn­ing eight acco­lades, includ­ing four Gold awards.

• Bloomberg News
• Direct China Chamber of Commerce
• Mordor Intelligence