Olive Oil is a vegetable oil extracted from the fruit of the olive tree (olea europaea). It is a primary source of monounsaturated fats and therefore a food with significant health benefits. Olive oil has been known to humanity since antiquity and up until today its impact on several facets of everyday life, including medicine, trade, religion and others, remains remarkable.
In our days, more than 750 million olive trees are cultivated globally with 95% of those located within the Mediterranean Basin. This stunning figure is to be attributed to the Mediterranean temperate climate which provides the olive tree with a stable environment of ideal temperature and humidity. Spain, Italy and Hellas (Greece) combine to produce on average more than 70-75% of the global olive oil output[1], while they account for approximately 80% of European olive oil consumption. According to European Commission statistics[2], Spain is the biggest supplier with 655 000 t annually, while Italy is the biggest buyer with 533 000 t. Despite its small size, Greece with about 140 million olive trees provides 12-14% (300-350 thousands tonnes) of the global olive oil production. Although third in terms of quantity, Greece is world’s biggest producer and exporter[3] of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO), the type of olive oil with the highest quality and the richest nutrients. In numbers, more than 80% of the total Greek olive oil production (90% for the domestic production within Crete) is categorized as extra virgin (evoo), with the corresponding numbers for Italy and Spain being 59% and 35% respectively. Other important olive oil producing countries are Portugal, France, Cyprus, Morocco, Tunisia, Syria, Turkey and more recently the USA and Australia . Several olive varieties are cultivated around the globe with the most popular of them being Koroneiki from Greece, Picual and Hojiblanca from Spain and the Italian Corantina and Leccino.
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