The olive harvest in Italy this year should be 30% higher compared to 2014, with an excellent quality due to a favourable climate, farmers’ association Coldiretti has announced.
Compared to last year, which was one of the worst on record with just over 300,000 tons recorded, oil production in 2015 should rise to about 400,000 tons.
However, Coldiretti points out that last year’s low production levels have led to an increase in imports from abroad; the first half of 2015 saw the import of 321,000 tons of foreign oil, and imports from Tunisia rose by 748 per cent in just one year. This situation is likely to deteriorate further after the green light from the European Commission for the increase in the import quota of subsidized olive oil from Tunisia into the EU until 2017.
For its part, ISMEA, which provides analysis for the Italian agricultural sector, estimates that olive oil production will grow 60%, from 222,000 last year to 350,000 in 2015.
The Italian olive industry has a portfolio of 250 million trees on 1.1 million hectares of land, with a turnover of around €2 billion. These figures make Italy the second largest producer after Spain, but also the first country in number of oil of Protected Origin Denomination (DOP).
© 2015 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
