Turkey’s Olive Oil Exports Jump as Spain Falls Short
Turkey has sold more olive oil abroad in five months than in the whole of the past two seasons put together: 45,524 tons between November and March, worth about 143 million dollars, according to the country’s olive oil exporters. The reason is not a Turkish success story so much as a Spanish disaster. Here are the numbers and what they say about how the trade really works.
What happened
The Aegean Olive and Olive Oil Exporters’ Union, the exporters’ body for the Aegean region that grows and ships most Turkish oil, published its figures for the 2012/13 season so far. Exports from November 2012 to March 2013 reached 45,524 tons, an increase of 446 percent on the same five months a year earlier. Export earnings rose 406 percent to about 143 million dollars. March alone was up 626 percent against March 2012.
That follows two modest seasons. Turkey exported around 12,000 tons in 2010/11 and about 20,000 tons in 2011/12, when export income was around 65 million dollars.
| Season | Olive oil exports | Value |
|---|---|---|
| 2010/11 | About 12,000 tons | Not given |
| 2011/12 | About 20,000 tons | About 65 million dollars |
| 2012/13, November to March | 45,524 tons | About 143 million dollars |
Why now
The exporters’ own report gives the credit to the weather in Andalusia. Spain, which normally makes about half the world’s olive oil, lost roughly 60 percent of its crop after a dry year. Better harvests in Italy and Greece, worth an extra 95,000 tons or so between them, came nowhere near filling that hole. The union also points to the removal of the European Union’s customs duty on Turkish olive oil as a factor.
Turkey is the world’s fifth biggest producer, behind Spain, Italy, Greece and Tunisia, with output in recent seasons in the range of 150,000 to 180,000 tons. Most of it is eaten at home, and the main oil varieties, Ayvalık in the north and Memecik further south, make very good oil when the fruit is picked and milled with care. What changes in a year like this is not how much Turkey grows but how much it is worth sending abroad.
Where it goes is another matter. Most Turkish oil leaves in bulk, and in a season like this the buyers are the big packing plants around the Mediterranean that need volume to keep their own brands on the shelf. The exporters’ union has spent years pushing its members towards bottled, branded sales instead, on the sound argument that bulk business disappears the moment the neighbors have a good crop again.
What it means for buyers
- A shortage in one country moves oil across the map. When Spain is short, bulk buyers go to Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco and Greece, and prices everywhere follow Jaén.
- Most of this oil travels in tankers, not bottles. It is sold to packers and blenders, and the bottle it ends up in will carry someone else’s brand.
- The boom is fragile. If Spain has a normal crop next season, Turkish oil loses both the buyers and the price, which is why exporters’ unions push so hard for their own branded sales while the window is open.
In a short year the label on the shelf changes far less than the oil behind it. Bottlers are contracted to supply a supermarket all year at an agreed price, and if their usual origin is expensive or unavailable, they buy where it is cheap and legal to do so. That is one reason a familiar brand can taste different from one purchase to the next, and why the small print about country of origin is worth a glance even when the front of the bottle has not changed at all.