Italian olive oil production will drop by 38% in the season 2016/2017, to just 298 million kg, close to the historic low, according to Italian farrmers organization Coldiretti, based on ISMEA/Unaprol data.
As the second largest olive oil producer, Italy has more than 250 million olive trees, on over one million hectares of land cultivated.
It also has the greatest number of extra virgin olive oils with denomination (44) in Europe and the widest heritage of olive tree varieties in the world (395).
Olive oil production is also expected to fall in Greece (-20% to 240 million kg) and Tunisia (-21% to 110 million kg).
On a positive note, production levels will be on the same level with last year for market leader Spain (1.4 billion kg) and Turkey (+33% to 190 million kg).
Overall, global olive oil production is expected to drop by 9%, to 2.785 billion kg, with consequent effects on prices.
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
