The International Olive Council’s (IOC’s) July 2020 newsletter includes news about the IOC’s meetings, decisions, job openings, and PhD fellowship, ending with an overview of worldwide trade in olive oil and table olives. It includes a link to a document describing the procedures for organoleptic panels to follow during a pandemic.
New PDO and PGI designations from the European Union recognize this unique extra virgin olive oil's distinctive characteristics and specific origin in Thrace, northeastern Greece.
An interesting, at times surprising, data source on worldwide olive oil production, consumption, imports, and exports from Olive Oil Times. Users can select specific countries for information about them.
This European Commission publication includes points about olive oil on pages 5 and 21-22. For example: "Olive oil prices remain under pressure despite positive price signals after the activation of private storage aid, an overall EU consumption that could grow by 6%, and dynamic trade to all main export destinations. The 2020/21 EU production could be around 2.3 million t, thanks to good weather conditions in the spring in Spain that would compensate the impact of heat waves in Greece and a lack of rain in certain Italian producing regions."
Once again, as Paolo DeAndreis writes, "The United States Trade Representative (USTR) is reviewing existing tariffs and considering whether or not to impose new ones on goods imported from the European Union."
Olive oil is one of the exceptions; its exports increased both in May and in the first five months of 2020.
There seems to be some concern in Greece about a new proposal for olive oil standards in the US. As a different article by Vassilis Zampounis (in Greek) points out, a new rule about the level of free fatty acids (among other things) could ignore other important factors that help determine olive oil quality.
Data from the European Commission, focused on Europe and its partners.
As Costas Vasilopoulos wrote for Olive Oil Times, "A heatwave during the critical flowering stage was enough to raise concerns among growers for their expected yields."
The International Olive Council has published estimates for olive oil production in the current crop year.
Very early expectations for worldwide olive oil production and consumption in the upcoming harvest year.
The International Olive Council has published provisional data for the previous (2018/19) crop year.
The EU's predictions for olive oil in the coming decade (the Olive Oil Times report).
"With its world-class olive oil winning kudos and awards in contests and a country whose very symbol is the olive tree, Greek producers and governments have let the international market slip away to countries and lesser brands."
"With U.S. tariffs on some Spanish olive oil imports coming into force, Greek producers should have an advantage over Spain. However, the nation has not been able to profit from exporting its olive oil" much in the past.
"A sudden outburst of the fruit fly and other pathogens inflicted unexpected damage on the island's farms."
An in-depth, informative article based on an interview with an international expert. It includes worldwide production estimates for the 2019/20 crop year.
The newsletter begins with an overview of IOC meetings and workshops planned for October, including one finalizing a collaboration between the IOC and the University of Jaen. A noteworthy result of that collaboration: “The IOC expert course on the organoleptic assessment of virgin olive oils will now be taught in English as well as Spanish.” A section on Canada shows that imports of olive oil--especially virgin—and olives have increased considerably since 2005, with about 5% of world imports of each going into Canada (a bit less for olives, but Greece is the second most important table olive supplier for Canada). Surveying the world trade in olive oil and table olives, the newsletter notes increased imports from October 2018 to June 2019 (compared to the same period in the previous year) in Japan (22%); Brazil (14%); Russia (13%); China (10%); the US (9%); and Australia (7%), with a decrease only in Canada, and only by 1%. Producer prices for olive oil were down (compared to the previous year) in the main producing countries in the summer, except for a 17% rise in Italy.
"Recently imposed tariffs on some Spanish olive oil exports to the United States could help Greek producers and exporters increase their presence in the lucrative U.S. olive oil market."
"The world’s third biggest producer is not generating the export earnings that it should." An unusually well-considered, in-depth, but not very encouraging discussion of the state of the Greek olive oil sector today.
