Türkiye's olive oil exports have fallen by seventy percent in two years. In 2023 the country shipped 152,427 tonnes for USD 733 million. In 2025 it shipped 45,423 tonnes for USD 219 million.

The instinct is to read this as a price collapse. It is not. Average export value was USD 4,810 per tonne in 2023 and USD 4,815 per tonne in 2025 — effectively unchanged. Nothing happened to price. Something happened to volume.

One line in the trade figures explains most of it. In 2023 Spain bought 69,049 tonnes of Turkish olive oil, worth USD 319 million — forty-five percent of Türkiye's entire export volume. In 2025 Spain bought 1,022 tonnes.

That trade was bulk oil. Spain's own crop had failed, the Spanish bottling industry needed volume, and Turkish tankers filled the gap. When world production recovered — up 38 percent in the 2024/25 season, with Spain alone supplying 40 to 45 percent of global output — the gap closed and the orders stopped. Türkiye did not lose a market. It lost a shortage.

What remains is the more interesting business. The United States, at 14,802 tonnes and USD 62 million, is still the largest destination. Japan has been in the top three every year for three years. Canada and Australia both grew in 2025 while the total was falling. Jordan went from 166 tonnes in 2023 to 5,084 in 2025.

These are not tanker markets. They buy bottled, branded, retail-ready product, and they keep buying when the bulk trade disappears. Japan's 2025 shipments earned USD 5,214 per tonne against USD 4,215 for the United States and USD 4,616 for the Spanish bulk trade at its 2023 peak.

For a buyer, the lesson is about which Türkiye you are dealing with. A supplier built on bulk tanker business has just lost most of its volume and will price accordingly. A supplier built on bottled export to Japan or Canada has a different cost base, different certification history and different capacity. Ask which one is quoting you, and ask before the new crop — harvest and pressing run from November to March.

Figures: Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Trade, Directorate General of Exports, Olives and Olive Oil, 2026. Unit values calculated from the tonnage and value columns of that report.

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