1.1 Current status of Chinese olive oil:

Currently, in Chinese oil market, besides soybean oil, corn oil, colza oil, peanut oil, sunflower oil and salad oil, some special type and health functional edible oil flood in China market, especially olive oil and camellia oil are more and more popular. Refer to the nutrition and health aspects, olive oil is better than other functional edible oil, therefore, more consumer pay more attention to olive oil and begin to purchase it. At present, comparing with the 20 million tons consumption of the vegetable oil, the consumption of olive oil is very little in China, The main reasons for this situation as follows:

• The output of domestic olive oil is very small and only nearly 20 tons and almost domestic olive oil were consumed in local regions, so the domestic olive oil did not really enter into the consumption market. The small output of domestic olive oil causes the higher cost of domestic olive oil than the import olive oil;
• Currently, olive oil mainly relies on import. The whole cost is very high and the retail price is 10 times more than vegetable oil.
• Chinese consumers are not familiar with olive oil and lack the awareness and knowledge of olive oil among consumers;
• Most consumers begin to pay more attention to the health and nutrition of food and are not able to distinguish the quality of different olive oil.

Although the above mentioned factors affect the consumption of olive oil, the import statistic data from China’s custom shows: from 2001 to 2005, China imported olive oil respectively 392 tons, 605 tons, 991 tons, 2,769 tons, 4,491 tons. The import volume of olive oil increased at over 70% annually on average. The major import countries of olive oil are Spain, Italy and Greece; respectively occupy 40%, 30%, and 20% of total import volume.

Currently, the information from Chinese olive oil wholesalers indicate that 90% of olive oil was sold in hose large & medium-scale cities, for example, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Tianjin. The major consumers of olive oil are some well-educated people and middle-class people. 40% of olive oil is purchased as gifts & presents and 60% of olive oil is for own use.

The following histogram figure shows the import and the different grades of olive oil in recent five years

Remark: for more information about Chinese olive oil market, please contact Beijing Regalland (regalland@regalland.com).