Olives: time for payback

June 5, 2023 at 4:27 PM , Der AUDITOR
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ANKARA. Turkey has invested a lot of time, effort and resources in cultivating olives in the past twenty years, which is now paying off. The country's olive and olive oil production is certainly generating high revenues.

Record olive oil exports

Investments are starting to pay off in Turkey's olive industry. The number of bearing trees has more than doubled from 90 million to 192 million in the past twenty years. Olive oil production reached 422,000 mt in 2022/2023. Exports have also risen sharply in the first six months of the current season. Turkey, in fact, exported 92,143 mt of olive oil worth USD 407.6 million, which already beats the previous record of 92,000 mt worth USD 292 million registered in the entire 2012/2013 season. The Aegean Olive and Olive Oil Exporters' Association expects the export value to exceed the USD 1 billion threshold in 2023 and the National Olive and Olive Oils Council (UZZK) that exports will reach 120,000 mt this season. Black olive exports generated USD 81.5 million in the first six monts of the season and green olive exports USD 28.4 million. Turkey's aim is to become the world's leading producer for olive oil and table olives.

Historically high prices

While global production took some hits in 2022/2023, output should recover again to 3.2 million mt in 2023/2024. EU member states will account for 2.0 million mt of this volume. As Turkey will be entering an off-year in production output is only estimated at 160,000 mt. The USA will remain the world's largest importer with 400,000 mt.

Trouble, however, is that the extreme heat and floods experienced in southern Europe have driven up olive oil prices. Prices for virgin olive oil range at EUR 7.00/kg (USD 7.49/kg) in Italy and at EUR 6.00/kg (USD 6.42/kg) in Greece and in Spain. Issue is the harm caused by the climate crisis. At USD 5,989/mt, global olive oil prices have also hit a 26-year high as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) illustrates.

 

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