Optimism in Italy as Olive Harvest Gets Underway

Leading Italian olive oil pro­duc­ers are opti­mistic about the upcom­ing har­vest.

Monini, one of Italy’s largest pro­duc­ers, said the coun­try would likely pro­duce more olive oil in the 2023/24 crop year than in the pre­vi­ous. The International Olive Council esti­mated that Italian pro­duc­tion reached 235,000 tons in 2022/23.

“We are expect­ing lower vol­umes in most areas of the north and cen­ter, but in the south, the sea­son is going well, with over­all good con­di­tions in Puglia,” Massimo Ragno, panel leader and pur­chas­ing man­ager at Monini, told Olive Oil Times.

While Ragno esti­mated that the over­all pro­duc­tion in Italy could exceed 300,000 tons, the largest pro­ducer asso­ci­a­tions are still work­ing on their esti­mates.

“Before the actual har­vest takes place and the first olive oil yields are con­firmed, num­bers must be taken cau­tiously,” Ragno warned.

However, for his 300,000-ton esti­mate to be real­ized, the olive oil yield in Puglia would have to exceed 200,000 tons, almost twice last year’s yield.

“Puglia is by far the most sig­nif­i­cant olive-pro­duc­ing region in Italy; what hap­pens there is des­tined to affect the whole national out­put,” Ragno said.

Due to the south­ern Italian region’s impor­tance to national pro­duc­tion, a wave of con­cern washed over the sec­tor in the last few days when a vio­lent hail­storm hit some areas of south­ern Italy, includ­ing the north­ern por­tion of Puglia, where large vol­umes of olives are grown.

“Rocks of ice that were as large as peaches fell from the sky in a rel­e­vant olive grow­ing area, approx­i­mately 15 square kilo­me­ters,” Ragno said. ​“Experts in the field, such as insur­ance tech­ni­cians, report only par­tial dam­ages to the olive trees.”

Some farm­ers hit by the storm told Olive Oil Times of sig­nif­i­cant but lim­ited dam­age.

“Extreme weather con­di­tions in the last few days reduced the dru­pes on the trees between 15 to 20 per­cent,” Luca Iannone, founder and coor­di­na­tor of Albori, told Olive Oil Times.

Iannone explained that Albori, located in the north­ern­most province of Puglia, is still mildly opti­mistic about the har­vest.

“The sea­son was mostly dry, and the trees suf­fered from some water stress so that emer­gency irri­ga­tion had to be deployed,” he said. ​“Still, we believe that both qual­ity and quan­tity will be sat­is­fac­tory.”

“We also expect a very good sea­son,” Emmanuel Sanarica, the pro­ducer behind Ulivè, told Olive Oil Times. ​“We are see­ing qual­ity olives, large and free of dam­ages from pathogens.”

“Still, the sea­son pro­vided us with chal­lenges, as we had intense rain­fall dur­ing flow­er­ing fol­lowed by extremely hot weather for the whole sum­mer,” he added. ​“I know of some areas where those con­di­tions reduced the fruit set and pro­voked rel­e­vant fruit drops, impact­ing pro­duc­tion.”

The Apulian grow­ers and those in other south­ern regions such as Calabria, Sicily, Basilicata and Campania account for 80 to 90 per­cent of Italy’s olive oil pro­duc­tion.

In Sicily, grow­ers expect olive oil pro­duc­tion to be sim­i­lar to last year, approx­i­mately 25,000 tons. The local asso­ci­a­tion Oleum Sicilia noted intense rain­fall and strong spring and early sum­mer winds impacted the olive groves.

“We might reach 30,000 tons, but it will still be way lower than the 50,000 tons, which has been the regional aver­age through the years,” said Mario Terrasi, pres­i­dent of the asso­ci­a­tion.

Salvatore Bono, co-owner of Sicily-based Bonolio, told Olive Oil Times that he expects the com­pany to pro­duce 20 per­cent more olive oil this year than last year.

“The increase and the high qual­ity of our olives will allow us to keep prices steady across the board, some­thing other brands may not be able to repli­cate,” he said. ​“As a result, our retail part­ners and cus­tomers have been opt­ing for our pre­mium extra vir­gin olive oils.”

“The har­vest at Bono’s facil­ity will begin the first week of October and is expected to con­clude at the end of the month,” Bono added. ​“In gen­eral, for all of our sup­pli­ers of olives, the full har­vest sea­son typ­i­cally begins at the same time and extends until the end of November.”

On the penin­sula, Campania was also hit by the severe hail­storm that affected Puglia, and sev­eral farm­ers there reported dam­age. The local branch of the farmer asso­ci­a­tion Coldiretti esti­mated an over­all olive oil out­put at about 8,000 tons, 40 per­cent lower than the five-year aver­age.

“Lots of hail fell in Campania just like in Puglia, where crops were dev­as­tated,” Claudio De Luca, owner of Case d’Alto, told Olive Oil Times. ​“As we were not hit, we will start the har­vest very soon. We need to see how the trans­for­ma­tion yield will go, but we expect to sat­isfy both qual­ity and vol­umes.”

In a recent note, the olive oil pro­duc­ers’ asso­ci­a­tion Unaprol remarked on how dif­fer­ent con­di­tions unfolded through­out the coun­try dur­ing the sea­son.

In the north­ern and cen­tral regions, the har­vest is expected to decrease by 20 to 50 per­cent com­pared to the pre­vi­ous sea­son.

In the region around Lake Garda and Lake D’Iseo in the north, some farm­ers report a 50 per­cent fruit loss com­pared to the pre­vi­ous sea­son’s boun­ti­ful crop.

In those farms, the north­ern­most areas where the olive tree is cul­ti­vated in Italy, mar­morated stink bug and olive fruit fly infes­ta­tions and a few hail­storms sig­nif­i­cantly reduced the num­ber of the dru­pes on the olive trees.

Extreme weather events were also cited as the lead­ing cause of an expected drop in olive oil pro­duc­tion in Emilia-Romagna and Veneto.

In Liguria, olive grow­ers fore­see pro­duc­tion decreases rang­ing from 50 to 70 per­cent, mostly due to the chal­leng­ing weather and olive fruit fly infes­ta­tions.

It is not going much bet­ter in cen­tral Italy. ​“In Abruzzo and Umbria, we are see­ing a low to medium sea­son unfold­ing,” Ragno said.

According to the regional pro­ducer asso­ci­a­tion Aprol, Umbria’s pro­duc­tion is set to shrink by 50 per­cent com­pared to the pre­vi­ous cam­paign, mostly due to very chal­leng­ing weather and a severe olive fruit fly infes­ta­tion.

“In the Latium region, we were already expect­ing the ​‘off-year’ for the olive trees,” Ragno said. ​“Our asso­ciates in the region tell us that things might be going a bit bet­ter than that in parts of Tuscany.”

In Tuscany, some local grow­ers reported highly chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions. Antico Poggiolo, located between Florence and Pistoia in north­ern Tuscany, told Olive Oil Times of a dis­ap­point­ing sea­son.

“This will not be a good har­vest. The fruit set was really low. That, cou­pled with the olive fruit fly infes­ta­tion, a very hot sea­son and the lack of rain, con­tributed to com­pro­mise the pro­duc­tion,” Silvia Gori, owner at Antico Poggiolo, told Olive Oil Times.

“Climate change in these last few years is seri­ously chal­leng­ing agri­cul­ture not only from a qual­ity point of view but also for its vol­umes,” she added. ​“This will be a sea­son to for­get. We esti­mate a pro­duc­tion reduced to zero or at least with such reduced vol­umes not to be able to ful­fill the demand.”

The sea­son is not going much bet­ter in cen­tral Tuscany. ​“This is not going to be a rich olive sea­son for Tuscany, as the olives are ran­domly dis­trib­uted here and there,” Alberto Morettini, owner of Frantoio di San Giminiano, told Olive Oil Times.

The Consortium for the Protection of the Tuscan Protected Geographical Indication-cer­ti­fied extra vir­gin olive oil released a note to warn of a 20 to 25 per­cent decrease in local olive oil that ful­fills the cri­te­ria of the PGI.

“It was all set to be a gen­er­ous cam­paign after the opti­mal flow­er­ing in April,” said Fabrizio Filippi, pres­i­dent of the con­sor­tium. ​“We then had the intense and repeated rain­fall in May and June, which charged the soil with water but did not allow good con­di­tions for pol­li­na­tion, so that the pas­sage from flower to fruit in many areas was hin­dered.”

“After that, we had the scorch­ing hot July and August, which stressed the plants. They ended up drop­ping their fruits because they could not bring them to ripen­ing,” he added. ​“Those grow­ers who could irri­gate recov­ered some pro­duc­tion; all oth­ers faced a way more com­pli­cated sce­nario.”

While Italy appears set to pro­duce more olive oil than in 2022/23, over­all pro­duc­tion vol­umes across the Mediterranean basin are likely to fall well below aver­age for the sec­ond straight year.

According to Savino Muraglia, award-win­ning olive oil pro­ducer in Puglia and Unaprol vice-pres­i­dent, ​“bulk olive oil prices have gone up 50 per­cent, and that will inevitably affect con­sumers.”

July 2023 data released by Frantoio Italia, a pub­lic obser­va­tory that tracks olive oil stor­age in the coun­try, noted that olive oil stocks dropped nearly 25 per­cent com­pared to July 2022. Italian olive oil pro­duc­tion fell 45 per­cent to 60,979 tons in the same period.

“The real ques­tion is what will hap­pen in six months when the stocks will run out,” Muraglia warned.