About 250 million tons of oils and fats are produced worldwide, of which 30 percent is palm, 23 percent is soybean and 9 percent sunflower; and 18 percent is animal fats. Olive oils, this year, do not even account for 1 percent of animal and vegetable fats, for the first time in history.
During 2023, 2.46 million tons of olive oils were produced on the planet. Just three countries out of the 198 current consumers, Italy, the United States and Spain, consume a third of all the olive oil produced on the planet. Italy comes first with 410 thousand tons of consumption; then the United States, for the first time in history with 375 thousand tons; and third Spain with 300 thousand tons. We live in an environment that does not cease to give us constant unprecedented situations.
These data are the result of internal work, supported by sources such as the European Commission, in its agricultural market report, the International Olive Council and the USDA Foreign Agriculture Service.
These data were revealed at the online round table The international market for animal fats and vegetable oils: Supply, demand and prices on the occasion of the World Olive Oil Exhibition, the world’s leading fair dedicated to olive oil that brings together the largest operators in the international trade of this wonderful product, uniting producers and consumers, on February 26 and 27.
Speakers at the table were: Laura Pereira, from the Aboissa Group; Jose Angel Olivero, commercial director of LIPSA; Jose Antonio Diaz Tavora, CEO of Diaz Tavora Agents; and Juan Vilar, international olive oil consultant. Sergio Caño, international market consultant, moderated the event.
For his part, Juan Vilar, international olive oil consultant, pointed out that the fall in the consumption of olive oil on the planet is due more to a lack of availability than to a shortage of demand; it is a crisis of supply, which has led per capita consumption, for the first time in recent times, to fall by more than 100 grams, that is, from 420 to 310 grams per person per year. Another of the points discussed is that soon, possibly this season, the United States will be the largest consumer of olive oil in the world.