Olive oil remains in stock again, exports drop 75% for the period January-March

Olive oil exports continue to remain low this year, reflecting the sector's difficulties.

According to Customs data, around 322 tons of olive oil were exported between January and March 2025. Compared to the same period last year, olive oil exports have decreased by 75%.

For this period, olive oil exports reached around 188.5 thousand lek in value, compared to 1 billion lek in exports in January-March 2024. The decline in exports in value is 81%.

Olive oil processors and exporters claim that they continue to be almost blocked from exporting extra virgin olive oil, due to the low prices offered by foreign buyers, especially from Italy, where competition with Spanish and Greek producers is very strong.

Aldo Jolla, an exporter from the Belsh area, says that since November he has not managed to sell a single liter of unpackaged olive oil. He currently has 30 tons of unsold olive oil in storage.

"The price that Italian wholesalers are asking is below the cost of production. They are offering us 4.7 euros per liter, while in Spain the price reaches 4.2 euros. At less than 500 lek per liter, we don't even cover the cost of labor," he says.

The high production costs are not only due to high wages for employees, but also to low mechanization that does not encourage increased yield, the lack of subsidies for each liter of oil produced by the farmer, as in Greece, where the state subsidizes the farmer 1 euro per liter, and the high level of informality of sales in the country.

During the last season 2024/2025, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, etc., had a good production, which has also led to a drop in the price of olive oil exported to major international markets, making Albanian oil uncompetitive.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Agriculture previously confirmed to Monitor that it is working to improve the storage and marketing conditions of olive oil, through a project financed by the World Bank worth about 1 million USD. According to this project, it is planned to establish a modern center in the Berat region, where the storage, packaging and branding of the Albanian olive oil product will be carried out.

But currently the only hope for exporters seems to be the tourist season, where demand from restaurants for olive oil is expected to increase from March.

Other exporters claim that for them the export market has more weight in sales than the domestic market. For this reason, they are committed to exporting branded packaged olive oil. While in the domestic market, the demand for packaged olive oil is low.

The olive oil market fluctuates greatly from year to year. In 2023, the high growth in exports, mainly for unpackaged oil (refugium) to Italy, was driven by the boomerang created by the overproduction of 2022, when farmers could not find a market to sell their olive oil.

In the past two years, 2023 and 2024, the amount of oil exports from Albania increased, because countries like Spain and Italy, which dominate the world market, had a major decline in production for two years in a row, due to the lack of rainfall.

 During the last season 2024/2025, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, etc., had a good production, which has also led to a decrease in the price of olive oil exported to major international markets./ Monitor