08/02/2026 (Financial Times) - Cheaper supplies from Tunisia are forcing producers to sell at a loss, industry group says.

Italian olive oil producers say a surge of cheap Tunisian imports has triggered a collapse in prices, increasing tensions between growers and the country’s powerful bottling industry.

Farmers’ group Coldiretti said imports from Tunisia rose about 40 per cent year on year in the first 10 months of 2025, forcing many Italian producers to sell at a loss as they could not compete.

“It will be very hard to recover prices,’’ David Granieri, vice-president of Coldiretti, said. The influx of cheaper foreign supplies began just as Italian farmers started harvesting and was “organised because the olive oil industry wants to bring down the price [in Italy]”, he said.

The Italian food oil industry association stressed that imports were unavoidable given Italy’s structural production deficit. Recent price falls reflected a recovery in Mediterranean production after two drought-hit seasons, rather than market manipulation, Anna Cane, head of the olive oil group at Assitol, said.

Coldiretti’s warnings come as Tunisia seeks to double the quota of olive oil it can export to the EU duty-free to 100,000 tonnes a year. However, the proposal would require agreement from EU member states, many of which face mounting pressure from domestic farmers over food imports.

Italy’s olive oil farmers have struggled in recent years with plant disease, erratic weather, labour shortages and ageing groves that are difficult to replace under strict landscape-protection rules.

The country has long relied on imports to meet annual demand of about 600,000 tonnes, once mainly from Spain but increasingly from Tunisia, where oil enters Italy at about €3.50 per kilo — a price producers say forces many Italians to sell below cost.

Coldiretti says more than 500,000 tonnes of olive oil entered Italy in 2025, far exceeding domestic production of about 300,000 tonnes.

Two seasons of climate-related poor weather curbed production across Europe and drove prices to multiyear highs, peaking in 2024. The rally encouraged Tunisian farmers to plant more olive trees, expanding production.

Last month a report from the European Court of Auditors, which said 75 per cent of EU olive oil imports come from Tunisia, found significant gaps in oversight, with controls on pesticide residues and other contaminants in imported olive oil “either non-existent or very limited” in several member states, including Italy and Spain.

Imports are not the only worry for Itailan olive growers.

As the prices of genuine olive oil rose sharply, many Italians have been tricked into buying cheaper “fake olive oil”, which is often seed oils coloured with chlorophyll, according to Coldiretti. Other cases involve genuine olive oil being mislabelled as extra virgin despite failing to meet required standards.

Granieri criticised EU customs rules that allow products processed in Italy to be marketed as Italian, even when the raw materials are imported. Italian bottler Monini also called for more precise origin labelling.

Michele Buccelletti, a Tuscan olive grower who bottles and sells oil under his family name, said he was not opposed to Tunisian imports, which he described as important for supporting the north African country’s economy and to ‘‘reduce immigration to Italy’’.

Buccelletti said Tunisian olive oil was often of high quality, with relatively low pesticide residues, but warned that weak traceability created opportunities for abuse.

“Some unscrupulous traders are passing off Tunisian oil as Italian, which is therefore being used to depress Italian olive oil prices — which would otherwise command a premium.”

https://www.ft.com/content/0ad60c04-84a4-4ae0-8d83-7b41afc4644d