: Australian olive oil industry faces growing demand amid international shortages

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Australians love olive oil, and right now, whether it is imported or home-grown, it is expensive. Landlines Halina Baczkowski takes a look at why, and how Australian olive oil compares with that from overseas.

Transcript

00:00Australians are facing a double blow when it comes to olive oil, availability and price.

00:10Firstly, a heatwave and drought in Europe, a major source of olive oil, has limited supplies.

00:17And secondly, the Australian season hasn't been great, so prices have skyrocketed.

00:24Five years ago, you could buy a 750ml bottle of extra virgin olive oil for around $10.

00:32Lately, it could cost anywhere up to $25.

00:36Spain produces half the world's olive oil, so they've had a big supply issue.

00:41And thirdly, in Australia, because we've had wet summers, olives absolutely love a dry summer.

00:46The wet summers have been bad for us, so we've had a couple of bad seasons, including this

00:50season here, which is an off-season anyway, because olives have an on-year and an off-year.

00:55But it's been tough, so there's a shortage of supply, and if you have a sit-by yourself,

01:00you'll see lots of empty shelves.

01:03But our love affair with the golden liquid hasn't faltered.

01:11Leandro Rossetti is the CEO of Cobramus State, and he reckons consumption of olive oil in

01:17Australia has more than doubled.

01:20It's largely on the back of domestic production, that now supplies approximately 50% of the consumption.

01:26Another interesting fact about Australian consumption, it has the largest consumption

01:31of olive oil per capita outside the Mediterranean.

01:35So if you move away from the traditional countries like Spain, Italy, Greece, well, Australia

01:39is the largest consumer per capita, with a bit over 2 litres per capita.

01:43But still a long way to go before you reach the 8 to 10 and plus litres per capita per

01:49year that they have in Spain, Italy or Greece.

01:52And if we follow the medical advice of having two, three tablespoons a day, that actually

01:57translates into about 8 litres per capita.

02:01Cobramus State is Australia's largest producer of extra virgin olive oil.

02:05According to the company, it makes up 70% of all extra virgin olive oil grown and produced

02:12in the local market, with their products easy to find on the big three supermarket shelves.

02:17The company recently opened a new integrated site in the northwest Victorian town of Bort.

02:23Chair and co-founder Rob McGavin says their investment is a big one.

02:28Yeah, it's huge.

02:29We've got two and a half million trees.

02:31It costs around $40 million per year in operating costs to run our groves.

02:35And we've just done a $35 million expansion of our groves.

02:38There's something like $700 million we've invested in developing this Australian industry.

02:47So, yeah, it's huge.

02:48It's huge.

02:49It's huge.

02:50It's huge.

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