Eight Jordanian companies showcase olive oil in Beijing
An olive-oil pavilion in Beijing is not a photo opportunity. It is a bet on the single biggest prize in the trade: a market of a billion-plus people who barely cook with olive oil yet — and every producing nation wants to be there when that changes.
Every year, delegations from the olive countries — the giants like Spain and Italy, and smaller players like Jordan, Tunisia or Turkey — take stands at olive-oil fairs in China. It can look like a diplomatic junket. It is really the clearest signal in the trade of where the next century of demand is expected to come from.
Why China is the prize
Olive oil is a Mediterranean habit, and the mature markets there and in the Americas are more or less full. Growth has to come from places where olive oil is new, and no market is bigger or newer than China. Per-head consumption is still a rounding error next to Greece or Spain, and almost every drop is imported. Multiply even a small rise in habit across that population and the numbers dwarf any traditional market. That is the arithmetic behind every pavilion.
Why the small nations show up too
For a giant like Spain, China is volume. For a smaller producer, a fair in Beijing is a chance to escape a trap: selling your oil in bulk to be blended and bottled under someone else’s brand. A stand of your own is a shot at being known by name, at building a direct relationship with importers, at capturing the margin that otherwise vanishes into a blender’s tank. That is why a handful of companies from a modest olive nation will cross the world for a three-day show — the upside of a foothold is enormous.
What actually sells the oil
The pitch in a new market is almost always health, because taste is a habit that has to be learned. Olive oil enters as ‘the healthy fat’ before it becomes a cooking staple, which shapes what gets bought first — often mild, approachable oils rather than the fierce, peppery styles a Mediterranean palate prizes. The risk in any young market is the same one that shadows the mature ones: where demand outruns local knowledge, adulteration and vague labelling follow the money. A market learning to love olive oil also has to learn to read it — see what ‘extra virgin’ really means.
| The prize | A vast market with very low per-head use |
|---|---|
| Supply | Almost entirely imported |
| Lead pitch | Health first, cuisine second |
| First-buy styles | Milder, approachable oils |
| Big producers’ aim | Sheer volume |
| Small producers’ aim | A named foothold, not anonymous bulk |
| The risk | Adulteration follows fast-growing demand |
The takeaways
- China is the frontier because it is huge, growing and starts from a very low base.
- Health leads the sale; taste is a habit that comes later.
- Small nations chase names, not just volume, to escape the bulk trap.
- New markets must learn to read labels, or adulteration rides in on the growth.
Olive oil in China: common questions
Why is China such a target for olive-oil exporters?
Because it combines a vast population with very low current consumption and almost total reliance on imports — so even a small rise in habit means enormous new demand.
Does China grow its own olive oil?
Only in small quantities, mainly in regions such as Gansu. The overwhelming majority of olive oil consumed in China is imported.
Why do small producing countries bother with Chinese fairs?
A stand of their own is a chance to be known by name and sell directly, rather than shipping oil in bulk to be blended and branded by others.
What kind of olive oil sells first in a new market?
Usually milder, approachable styles, and usually on a health message — bold, peppery oils are an acquired taste that comes with experience.
Is there a downside to fast growth?
Yes. Where demand outruns knowledge, mislabelling and adulteration tend to follow, so buyers in new markets need to learn how to read an olive-oil label.
Do not be cynical about those pavilions. For a small olive nation, a stand at a Chinese fair is one of the few ways to break out of the bulk trade, where your good oil disappears into a blender’s tank under a foreign flag. The prize is real, but so is the risk: a market learning to love olive oil is also a market that does not yet know how to spot a bad or cut one. The producers who will still be selling in China in twenty years are the ones building a name and teaching their buyers to taste — not the ones chasing this year’s cheapest container.
An original olives101 look at the emerging Chinese olive-oil market.