Manuel Parras. UJA

Over the last three decades, world olive oil consumption has doubled. However, this favourable evolution shows two different readings: on the one hand, a significant and sustained growth in demand in countries with little or no production and a decline in the major producing countries. Paradoxically, the same reason, the ageing of the population, explains this dual behaviour.

This evolution of global demand means that promotion strategies, hitherto focused on non-producing or low-producing countries, need to be rethought. In this context, analysing which market segments are key to increasing demand in producer countries and discussing the main strategies to achieve this objective is a challenge for the institutions and for the agents operating in the olive oil value chain.

Previous research points to three market segments that need to be targeted: young people, whose per capita demand is very low compared to that of their parents and grandparents; the catering channel which, with few exceptions, does not consume olive oils, especially in the context of the high prices we are currently experiencing; and the public administrations themselves, which have to use olive oils in their establishments where they prepare and offer food, whether or not they are managed by the public administrations themselves.