Chilean Producers Work to Prevent Harvest Disruption in the Face of Covid-19

The Chilean olive oil indus­try is prepar­ing an early start to the har­vest and strip­ping down its work­force to essen­tial per­son­nel, in order to pre­pare for a 2020 pro­duc­tion sea­son while Covid-19 cases peak in the coun­try.

Though the olive indus­try per­se­vered in the wake of the mag­ni­tude 8.8 earth­quake that hit the coun­try in February 2010, the con­di­tions sur­round­ing the har­vest now are even more uncer­tain and com­pli­cated. The indus­try has been on alert since the first cases of Covid-19 appeared in Chile in the first week of March.

The Chilean Ministry of Health pre­dicts that the Covid-19 pan­demic will peak in the coun­try in May, which is also his­tor­i­cally the peak of the Chilean olive har­vest. In light of this pre­dic­tion, many com­pa­nies have decided to start the olive har­vest next week, to get as much done as pos­si­ble before the restric­tions on move­ment make every­thing more com­pli­cated.

“Our area still has few cases, but we are prepar­ing our­selves in the event that a manda­tory quar­an­tine could be decreed,” explained Héctor Troncoso, agri­cul­tural direc­tor of Qori, a com­pany in the Ovalle area north of Santiago. Troncoso pointed out that the advance of the har­vest is also due to the fact that the area will face a dry autumn, with a high prob­a­bil­ity of frost.

“Agronomically it is a year of high load in Coratina, Frantoio, Arbosana and Koroneiki, nor­mal in Arbequina, Leccino and Frantoio. Fortunately, we have had good avail­abil­ity of water … and we hope that our oils will be of very high qual­ity and we will strive to obtain them in the best way,” he said.

ChileOliva, an asso­ci­a­tion of the largest olive oil com­pa­nies in the coun­try, is con­duct­ing a cam­paign to encour­age pro­duc­ers to move for­ward with the har­vest in the face of the pan­demic, asso­ci­a­tion gen­eral man­ager Gabriela Moglia said. The asso­ci­a­tion has also instructed pro­duc­ers to heed Ministry of Health rec­om­men­da­tions to pro­tect work­ers and pre­vent infec­tions, which could put this year’s pro­duc­tion at risk.

Among these rec­om­men­da­tions are the manda­tory use of masks for all per­son­nel; hand wash­ing and the use of hand san­i­tizer; tem­per­a­ture mon­i­tor­ing of all employ­ees before they begin work each day; and increased fre­quency of san­i­ti­za­tion of all com­pany facil­i­ties.

Alonso Olive Oil founder and direc­tor Juan José Alonso, said the com­pany has already imple­mented these mea­sures, has gath­ered all the nec­es­sary sup­plies, and has closed its doors to sup­pli­ers and cus­tomers.

“We are part of the food chain and stop­ping [pro­duc­tion] is not an option,” Alonso said. ​“We believe that we will be able to work with our staff, with­out the need to bring in con­trac­tors. [We will start the har­vest early] and the week of April 6 we will already be work­ing at full speed.”

Producer Deleyda from the cen­tral zone will face its first har­vest with­out the aid of its Italian con­sul­tant.

“We [will depend on] the knowl­edge that our team has con­sol­i­dated in Chile [over the last 12 years], and we are con­vinced that we are going to do it well,” said gen­eral man­ager Fernando Carrasco, adding that only the min­i­mum num­ber of work­ers will be per­form­ing each task and that spe­cial pre­cau­tions will be taken to avoid inter­ac­tion between field, mill, pack­ag­ing and admin­is­tra­tion staff.

Manuel Urmeneta, gen­eral man­ager of Monteolivo, one of the main exporters in the coun­try, said that, given the cur­rent con­di­tions, every­thing has been slower, includ­ing pur­chases of spare parts and tech­ni­cal ser­vice. Urmeneta said the com­pany is ready to start the har­vest and antic­i­pates a higher pro­duc­tion than in 2019 — about 100,000 more kilos (about 110 tons) of oil.

“We are pre­pared to oper­ate with peo­ple who live in the fields or near the fields [rather than trans­fer­ring work­ers or using con­trac­tors],” he said.

There are fewer cases of Covid-19 and more free­dom of move­ment in the regions with the high­est olive oil pro­duc­tion than in the coun­try’s cap­i­tal, Santiago, parts of which have already been quar­an­tined.

March was a record month for domes­tic sales, as peo­ple stocked up on olive oil and other sta­ples to pre­pare for quar­an­tine.

“In our stores, peo­ple came out with more than two drums (5 liters), which is not the usual behav­ior. We had 22 per­cent more sales in Chile and a very high increase in online [sales],” said Alonso Olive Oil com­mer­cial direc­tor José Manuel Reyes.

Deleyda closed March with 17 per­cent more sales in the Brazilian mar­ket, which is its main sales arena.

“People bought for quar­an­tine, and as always hap­pens to us in times of cri­sis, we increase the sale of pre­mium [oil] ver­sus our clas­sic line,” Carrasco said.

Both com­pa­nies are con­cerned about what will hap­pen to sales in the hotel and restau­rant chan­nel, which is suf­fer­ing the most dras­tic effects of the cri­sis. Chilean pro­duc­ers will also have to go with­out the annual vis­its from inter­na­tional buy­ers, who usu­ally arrive in mid-April to select the first oils. Without a doubt, the 2020 har­vest will be very dif­fer­ent than pro­duc­ers had planned.