Olives: Turkey breaks all records
November 23, 2022 at 12:17 PM ,
Der AUDITOR
Sharp rise in production
Turkey's National Olive and Olive Oil Council (UZZK) has monitored production since 2009/2010 and reckons that the number of fruit-bearing trees exceeded 167.7 million in 2022/2023, which is 1.86% up on last year. Average yields range at 17.8 kg per tree and production is estimated above 2.97 million mt, a sharp 71.2% up on last year. Since around 75% of the crop are pressed into olive oil table oil production should range at 735,678 mt and olive oil production at 421,700 mt, which marks a 78.9% rise on last year.
The country has thereby advanced to the world's leading table olive producer, followed by Spain and Egypt, and to the second largest olive oil producer after Spain. Production is not only profiting from ideal climatic conditions but the governemt has also provided growers with substantial financial support. While Turkey is turning out record volumes, drought had an adverse impact on production in Spain, Italy and Greece and Tunisia. As the world is in crisis mode production costs have, however, soared to TRY 80-85/l for olive oil.
And exports
Exports are also on the rise. According to the Aegean Exporters' Association Turkey shipped a record 110,000 mt of table olives overseas in 2021/2022 (October-September), which is also 24% up on 2020/2021. In addition, the export value rose by 15% to USD 173 million. The Aegean Olive and Olive Oil Exporters' Association (EZZİB) is confident that exports will continue to climb and expects table oilve shipments to rise to 150,000 mt and olive oil shipments to 200,000 mt in 2022/2023. Sales will thereby approach USD 1 billion.