20 BULKDISTRIBUTOR
Flexitanks & Liners
November/December 2015
Tunisian olive oil exports
skyrocket
A
uthorities in Tunisia are working to
diversify the country’s industrial sector
by focusing on value-added agro-industrial
products, such as olive oil, which is currently
enjoying an export boom.
According to a report by the Oxford Business
Group, olive oil export revenues were up eightfold year-on-year (y-o-y) in the first half of 2015,
reaching TD1.3 billion (€591.3 million), according
to Noureddine Agrebi, director-general of food
industry at the Ministry of Industry, Energy and
Mining.
In volume terms, olive oil exports grew slightly
less, by a multiple of 7.7, reaching 214,000 tonnes
over the period. This comes after a five-fold
increase in production last year, when Tunisia
ranked as the world’s second-largest olive oil
producer for the first time, displacing Italy and
trailing Spain.
Continued growth in the olive oil industry is
expected to pay both social and economic
dividends, with more than 1 million people directly
or indirectly employed, according to figures from
the EU.
Olive oil also represents a key revenue generating
commodity, accounting for more than 10 percent
of total export revenues. Around 70 percent of the
olive oil produced annually is sold abroad, with the
country’s 80 million olive trees covering a third of
its arable land. Bulk olive oil exports from Tunisia
are often carried in flexitanks.
While recent harvest figures bode well for the
future of the industry, some of the recent growth
is the result of exceptional circumstances. Tunisia’s
record olive crop comes as traditional producers in
Spain and Italy have seen poor harvests and
international prices have surged – to a 10-year
high of US$4,500 a tonne in August, up 40
percent y-o-y.
The Puglia region in southern Italy has been
plagued by disease that attacks olive trees in the
past year and which has damaged a significant
proportion of the region’s output.
At the same time, the EU, which buys 60-70
percent of Tunisia’s olive oil, nearly doubled the
country’s annual export quota through to the end
of 2017. Purchases from Russia have also been on
the rise, due in part to EU trade sanctions.
According to Abdellatif Ghedira, head of the
National Oil Office, the olive crop next harvest
season – which begins in November – is
expected to be less robust. Speaking to media in
August, Ghedira explained that olive trees are
unable to produce two consecutive years of
strong crops and rainfall has been sporadic in
recent months, predicting a harvest of around
160,000 tonnes.
However, there are encouraging signs that food
exports are growing in general. Food exports
surged by 129 percent y-o-y to TD2.3 billion in the
first six months of the year, and Tunisia’s balance
of trade in foodstuffs registered a surplus of
TD314 million over the same period, compared to
a deficit of TD656 million last year, Agrebi said.
Exports of dates and pasta jumped 25 percent and
20 percent y-o-y, respectively, in the first half of
2015, according to Agrebi.
To capitalise on growing demand, Tunisia is
working to move up the value chain from raw
agricultural exports to semi-processed and
Tunisia is looking to increase the proportion of bottled and branded exports as opposed to purely bulk sales
processed products. In the case of olive oil, the
country is looking to increase the proportion of
bottled and branded exports, as opposed to purely
bulk sales.
According to the Tunisian International Olive
Council, only 14.3 percent of Tunisian olive oil
exports are bottled or packaged. Some 75 percent
of Tunisian olive oil exported to Spain and Italy is
sold in bulk, where it is blended with domestic oil,
and bottled and marketed as a local product for a
higher price. Olive oil producers in the country are
working to cultivate a comparable global
reputation for Tunisian olive oil.
“The Tunisian product is not known; we are
trying to overcome this,” Abdel Salam Al Wadi,
chairman of the Tunisian Olive Oil Association, told
media in August. “But we still need to create a
profile for Tunisian olive oil.”
Another opportunity for value-added products of
Tunisian origin is harissa, the traditional North
African hot chilli paste. Made from ingredients
such as olive oil, garlic and chilli pepper, harissa
comes in a range of varieties and is becoming a
popular fixture in overseas restaurants.
Faced with foreign manufacturers marketing
lesser pastes under the name of harissa, last year
government officials and Tunisian manufacturers
like SICAM, the top local producer of harissa,
launched a product certification process, Food
Quality Label Tunisia, though more active
marketing and branding will likely be needed to
raise the overall profile of Tunisian agricultural
products.