Short in Olives + Tariffs = Perfect Storm
The perfect storm is developing over Spanish green olives – the combination of tariffs and a very short crop. As part of the Airbus subsidy dispute, Spanish green olives have been hit with a 25% tariff. Compounding that is an off year for Queens (Gordal – large green olives) which is expected to bring crop volume down to 20.4 thousand tons as compared to about 45 average over the past few years.
Manzanilla olives were also short, coming in at 114.9 thousand tons vs 209 last year. This is the lowest tonnage any year in the past decade. After last year’s big crop, a significant quantity was not picked for table olives (as sizing was not optimal) and as a result farmers left the olives on the trees for an additional month for olive oil production. This gave the trees 1 month less to “rest”. Additionally, during the flowering season, the weather was erratic, with rains and extremely hot temperatures. In turn, the weather conditions caused flowers to fall off as the trees were not "rested" enough.
Hojiblanca olives are forecasted to be a bit below average, coming in at 224.6 thousand tons vs 273 last year. This variety is harvested 1 month later than Manzanilla, giving it more opportunity to benefit from rainfall.