The made-in-Italy oil industry is still family-driven

A three-quarters family-controlled industry, which in view of the forthcoming generation change could usher in a season of buying from abroad. This is the picture of the olive oil sector in Italy according to Area studi Mediobanca. A sector, this, of which our country is the second largest producer in the world (12% of the total) after Spain (31.8%) and also the second largest exporter, with 338 thousand tonnes per year, again behind the Spanish who export 781 thousand tonnes.

Spain is therefore too distant a competitor to beat, 'but it is true that compared to us it is further behind in the ability to add value to the product,' says Oriana Romeo, an analyst from the Mediobanca Studies Area responsible for the oil report. And it is precisely this search for a higher added value that could push Iberian companies to buy an Italian brand. To date, of the only four foreign companies present in Italy in this sector, two are in fact Spanish - Deoleo and the Catalan Candor-Ags - plus the French Avril and the Chinese Bright Food. "Since 2020, the number of Italian companies with an excellent state of health has dropped,' says Romeo. 'Today we are faced with 50% of oil companies that are doing well, and 50% in an intermediate position, which may need some help. On the other hand, many of our companies operating in the sector do not produce the oil directly, but are involved in packaging and marketing and buy oil in bulk, albeit 44% from Italy.

However, the sector's turnovers remain healthy: after a 2023 - also thanks to the surge in oil bottle prices - which closed with a 24.5% expansion in turnover, the major Italian players expect a sales growth of 9.5% in 2024. And production? 'It has been declining for three consecutive years now, due to the drought,' recalls Oriana Romeo. According to Mediobanca data, world olive oil production in 2023-24 was about 2.4 million tonnes. The European Union accounts for 71.7% of global output: after Spain and Italy come Turkey (8.7%) and Tunisia (8.3%), which have now overtaken Greece and are proving to be increasingly fierce competitors.

In Italy, Apulia is the leading region in terms of olive oil production, with 59.3% of the national total, 45.7% of which comes from the provinces of Bari and Bat (Barletta-Andria-Trani), which since 2013 have compensated for the production deficits of the provinces of Lecce, Brindisi and Taranto, which were hard hit by Xylella. They are followed, but at a great distance, by Sicily (12.1%) and Calabria (10.6%), then Tuscany. Puglia also holds the record for unit production: 147.5 tonnes per mill, compared to 43.7 tonnes in Sicily and 31.3 in Basilicata. In any case, the average size of Spanish mills is still much larger, with production estimated at between five and six times that of Puglia.

Despite being the world's second largest producer, our country imports 510 thousand tonnes of oil each year, 39.2% of which is re-exported. Imports come mainly from Spain (41.7%), Greece (38.7%) and Tunisia (10.1%). As for our exports, half are concentrated in three countries: the United States (29.1%), Germany (11.2%) and Spain (10.6%).