Spanish olive oil dethroned Italian for the first time in the United States

He olive oil For the first time, the Spanish “dethroned” the one of Italian origin NOWthe third consumer market in the world (340,000 tons per year), thanks to a huge export growth of 25% in the last yearaccording to sources from the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX).

There are still an incredible number of Italian name brands on the shelves of American supermarkets, and oils with a clearly Spanish origin are almost as common as those from Turkey, Tunisia or Morocco.

This is explained by the fact that the olive oil that Spain sells wholesale to the US – which until 2021 was more than bottled – ends up in bottles of American brands, sometimes white brands from well-known supermarkets and other brands that have Italian or Greek healthy, because these are the two communities with the greatest demographic weight and to which olive oil is traditionally associated.

Repeal of the “Trump Tariff” was key

In 2019, the administration Trumpamid the Airbus/Boeing trade war, introduced a duty of 25% on olive oilExcept cheeses and oliveswhich the European Union (EU) responded by imposing similar American products in 2020; finally, in 2021, the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled in favor of the EU and both parties abolished those customs measures.

As a result, Spanish olive oil increased in 2022 to reach a sales figure of 170,383 tons, ahead of oil from Italy (124,256 tons) and far behind Tunisia, Turkey and Greece.

The Spanish current allowance in the USA the import of “green gold” is 41% in quantity and 38% in value and oils from almost all regions of Spain and all classic Spanish soil varieties (picual, arbequina, hojiblanca, etc.) participate in this impulse.

Jeffrey Shaw, from the New York office of the Institute of Foreign Trade of Spain (ICEX), explains that the process of positioning Spain goes back a long way and was possible thanks to the fact that Spanish manufacturers understood the importance of entering private labels (a third of the total in USA) and own brands.

In addition, Spanish companies such as Borges, oil and accessory they established alliances with American brands to export their oils through them, in order to reach consumers with other brands.

In the US market, it is very common to see bottles of extra virgin olive oil made from a blend of different origins, which usually appear in very small print on the back of the label: so an “Italian-sounding” brand like Bertolli states that imprecise amounts of oil have gone into the bottle from nine different countries, without knowing the percentages.

Furthermore, Shaw assumes that they exist California brands that manage to buy Spanish oil and not declare that it ispresenting it as California oil.

With per capita consumption still low (2 liters per capita per year, compared to 12 liters in Spain), Shaw believes there is great potential in the United States, especially in today’s world where natural and minimally processed products are highly valued.

The Italians “opened the way”

Eusebio García de la Cruz has been selling olive oil under the family brand for seven years, produced in Madridejos (Toledo) in the United States, when he settled there with his family, realizing that only by knowing the customer in his own environment can he break into a market he describes as “heavy”.

He knew from the beginning that he didn’t want to enter the low-end sector because it least allows him to grow, so he decided on the high-end sector ($20 for half a liter): he signed a contract with one of the largest supermarket chains gourmand and placed his oil in three formats.

De la Cruz, who organized expeditions of American experts to his factory in Spain, believes that Spain should learn from Italy because “it sells its brand and it has done it very well”, among other things thanks to the large community in the US. , just like (to a lesser extent) the Greeks.

And although Spain is trying to dethrone the Italians, De la Cruz wants to acknowledge the merits of our neighbors: without the path paved by the Italians, he believes, olive oil would not be what it is today in the US.