Olive oil sales in Spain increased by nine percent in the first eight months of 2020 compared with last year, according to data released by the National Association of Edible Oil Bottlers and Refiners (Anierac).
Overall, 232 million liters of olive oil were sold in the first eight months of the calendar year, the data showed. Bottled olive oil sales accounted for 27.2 million liters of this total and represented nearly half of all bottled vegetable oil sales in the country.
Of this total, 11.4 million liters were bottled extra virgin olive oil, while the rest of the sales included virgin olive oil and blended olive oils. Additionally, one million liters of olive pomace oil was bottled and sold in 2020.
The data released by Anierac, which was analyzed by the Spanish agricultural publication, Agrodigital, also showed that overall olive oil sales increased by 5.3 percent in the first 11 months of the 2019/20 crop year (which runs from October 2019 to September 2020) compared with the previous one.
During this time period, packaged and bulk extra virgin olive oil sales rose to 15 million liters, an increase of 12.7 percent compared with the previous crop year. Sales of blended olive oils also increased, rising by 3.3 percent in the current crop year.
While extra virgin olive oils and blended olive oils gained market share, sales of virgin olive oil and olive pomace oil both dipped in the 2019/20 crop year, falling by 11.2 and 8.5 percent, respectively.
The increase in extra virgin olive oil sales corresponds with the trend of healthy home cooking, one of the more positive effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has ravaged Spain since February.
Decreases in olive pomace oil and virgin olive oil sales has also coincided with the shuttering of many of the country’s restaurants and hotels during the height of the pandemic earlier this year.
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