Urban Food Chains

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olives

Mind the gap

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 International olive oil packers face a very real threat of gaps in stocks of olive oil before this year’s harvest comes onstream. There is reason to believe that without any carry-in stocks, the scenario will be repeated next year. Prices have been high for months, as dwindling tonnages have been shipped from emptying tanks. Costs are not expected to ease before May 2024. This is an unprecedented situation, even to the industry veterans who remember the 1990s.

The Turkish government has banned bulk shipments of olive oil until November 1, as Italian and Spanish packers scoured the markets for available tonnages. The 2021-22 crop year came close to 230,000 tonnes of olive oil in Turkey, while official sources are predicting a record 400,000 tonne crop for the current crop year. The country has a large table olive sector, which is also expecting a bumper crop of 700,000 tonnes. The way the two harvests are managed reflect the different product requirements, but variables such as oil content and moisture content have a degree of wriggle room. Table olives are fragile and demand very careful handling to remain visually perfect, while olives bound for the pressing mill need to be intact but not necessarily pristine.

Turkey also produces three quarters of the world’s hazelnuts, with average crops of around half a million tonnes inshell equivalent in recent years. There are lingering memories among olive oil traders of instances when consignments were topped up with hazelnut oil, which is very hard to detect when mixed with olive oil in small quantities. Such adulteration introduces a nut allergy risk, proportional to the percentage added. It requires specialist laboratories using either chromatography or spectroscopy to detect it. The confident predictions of record olive oil tonnages in Turkey’s current crop year may not be completely fortuitous.

In June, Portugal’s producers were predicting a trend-busting crop topping 100,000 tonnes, maybe even a record 126,000 tonnes. Whether it turns out to be a record harvest or not, it will all sell through in very short order. There is reason to suppose that the country is benefiting from its extensive Atlantic facade, even though Portugal is not a major producer.

Normally a net importer of olive oil, the southern hemisphere olive oil producer Ecuador is preparing to empty both its harvest and its reserves into a transient seller’s market. In terms of tonnages, this is unlikely to top 3,000 tonnes The southern hemisphere crop is in its final stages this month and every tonne harvested has a number of potential buyers in Europe.

The growing concerns over olive oil supplies are surfacing in many different ways across southern Europe. Croatian olive oil producers are critical of the restaurant trade’s insistence on putting cheaper imported olive oils on tables, while local specialities are promoted on the menu. Award-winning olive grower Ivica Vlatkovic put the cat among the pigeons by urging restaurateurs should sell 100 millilitre bottles of good quality olive oil as part of the cost of a cover.

City life cultivation dairy eggs pigs UK

Value or price?

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Today’s On Your Farm came from Yew Tree Farm, Bristol’s last city farm. Third generation farmer Catherine Withers faces existential challenges to a business that has adapted to extensive and rapid change, but is on the point of losing access to land that is vital to its survival. Part of a site of Scientific and Conservation Interest, the farm should have been spared the predatory attention of a local property developer.

Click the screengrab to access the programme on the BBC.

Instead, acres of hay and winter feed once intended for Catherine’s dairy herd is under lock and key. The tenancy on the field concerned was terminated in favour of a planning proposal for 200 homes that has yet to be agreed. When the BBC visited, the hay in the field was ready to be cut and the livestock would have been sure of winter sustenance. However, Catherine is kept away from her crop by a heavy padlock on the gate. Being able to see the crop but not gather it in just adds injury to insult.

Elsewhere on the farm, another tenancy on a field adjacent to a local council crematorium is set to end, as the town hall plans to extend the amenities for its residents. Again, it is the dairy cattle that will lose out. Catherine has a small dairy herd, as well as outdoor pigs: she also grows vegetables, which she can sell to local residents within walking distance of her farmhouse. Bristol used to have more than 30 farms within its boundaries: as the city’s only remaining farmer, Catherine is something of a local hero, not just to her customers.

Yew Tree has a high proportion of ancient meadow in its grazing, an irreplaceable asset that has been quietly sheltering threatened flora and fauna for centuries. Its value to Bristol is incalculable, but depends on being an integrated space, across which wildlife can roam. The shift from viable and productive to long term decline is an ever-present threat and determined by factors that neither Catherine nor her many supporters can control.

Listen to the programme while it is available on the BBC Sounds website. It raises questions for all of us, regardless of whether we live in a city or a rural area.

animal products City life Europe ship

Day and night

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For centuries urban populations have cheerfully ignored one of the most basic phases in the rhythm of the planet’s life, thanks to rapidly evolving technology. It is paradoxical, but completely normal, for millions of people around the world to treat the hours of day and night as interchangeable. In the twenty first century, the electric light switch rewrites all the rules governing what can be done at different times of day. For all practical purposes, such rules have no current application.

City life is 24/7, thanks to artificial lighting. A trivial gesture over a light switch is all many of us need to turn night into day. But this has not always been the case and if we make any serious progress with choking off climate change, we will have to rethink our energy expectations, too.

Before the widespread use of electric light, the availability of town gas pipes determined the extent of street and domestic lighting in industrial towns and cities. Go back a century and the demand for animal fats and oils to make candles and run lanterns was significant, if waning. But go back further and a gaping chasm re-appears between those who lived in sparsely-lit houses and those who could afford to routinely light their homes and entertain guests to dinner or dance the night away at elaborate balls.

Alaskan dockside scene, circa 1911.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Dig a little deeper into history and the lighting fuel of choice was whale oil, initially processed in dockside refineries around the world, later produced on board ship as whaling vessels became large enough to accommodate the necessary equipment and tankage. From being a rough and ready battle with nature and the elements, fraught with danger for the dinghy crews, whaling became an increasingly ruthless war of attrition that drove whole species to the brink of extinction. As well as extracting all the oil from a huge carcase, the whaling industry earned substantial money from whale meat, with some cuts sold on for cheap food products and the rest sold to feed urban cats and dogs. In this context, the dog’s dinner was a secondary by-product from the days of lucrative barrels of whale oil.The whaling industry went into a long term decline as a direct result of its impact on whale numbers.

France olives Switzerland tomatoes

Burning question

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Wildfires across huge areas of southern Europe mean even more bad news for olive oil and table olive packers. It is impossible to predict the full effect on this winter’s prices for olive oil or table olives, but there will be direct consequences. This is not a complete wipe-put story, since established olive trees with deep root systems can recover from fires, although this will take time. Young olive trees are more susceptible to fire damage.

Click image for latest information

The immediate impact will be on packers and blenders of olive oil, particularly in Italy: these skilled folk have a network of suppliers for very specific oils with relatively rare qualities. The suppliers of such rarities are spread over the continent, from Gibraltar and north Africa down to the middle east. The trading network is complex and known to a handful of olive oil blending experts.

In a year when the mainstream crop is already looking patchy and fraught, this will mean higher costs for the retailers. In the UK, the multiples are reluctant to let their double digit margins take a hit and will do their level best to make sure that suppliers carry the burden. The situation is, however, beyond horse trading. Bulk olive oil prices will be non-negotiable, where there is product to be had. Looking at the Mediterranean over the next few weeks, the following impacts can be expected. Industrial tomatoes for peeled plum tomato canning lines can be expected to be short, since crop irrigation is being used for firefighting. Chopped tomatoes, passata and tomato paste can be made from almost any variety of tomato and production is not limited to southern Italy. Table olives are under a shadow, with a high risk of localised damage: a lot of olives will have been burnt off the trees. Durum wheat, essential for pasta manufacture, may have escaped the worst of the heat waves, but export tonnages will probably be restricted.

For the latest information on the European forest fires, click here.

canning food production green beans tomatoes

Canned goods coming a cropper?

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We have been used to seeing cheap canned foods on supermarket shelves all the year round for decades. With southern Europe just one of the many regions suffering record temperatures and drought around the world, it is timely to look at the possible impact on food products that we have relied on for centuries. It is necessary to distinguish canned foods that have an underlying seasonality, in other words, a point in the season at which the given food is plentiful.

Foods such as canned peeled plum tomatoes, canned salmon, or canned green beans, are packed during the peak cropping weeks of the season. Dedicated canning and cooking lines operate 24/7, with a scaled up version of a process that Nicolas Appert would recognise instantly. In the case of wild salmon, the canneries are located next to the rivers and are stocked up with empty cans ahead of the season. When the salmon return to spawn, fishing crews join the serried ranks of predators that are attracted by thousands of fish in breeding condition.

The standard cooking unit on such lines are a large tank of water, similar to a swimming pool, but kept at a rolling boil for the duration of the pack, which can last weeks. As the fish are caught and brought to a salmon cannery, they are prepared and the cans are filled before cooking. The duration of the cooking time is regulated by a crawler belt that covers the floor of the cooker. Small 100 gram cans are shifted through the cooker during the day at relatively rapid speeds, since they need less cooking than larger cans.

In the case of peeled plum tomato canneries, can sizes go up to 3kg. Lorryloads of raw tomatoes are delivered during the day, some of which will be kept for the night shift. When they clock in, they start filling 3kg cans while the crawler belt is slowed down to its slowest setting. By the time the day shift returns, there will be large stacks of packed and cooked 3kg cans. There will also be a steady stream of lorries laden with tomatoes for the day shift as the belt at the bottom of the cooking tank returns to its daytime setting.

This kind of production line depends on high volume intakes during a clearly-delimited number of weeks (salmon canneries generally pack more than one kind of salmon). It is vulnerable to seasonal variations and crop failures. A bit like us, really. There is an important distinction to make for peeled plum tomatoes, which is that these are mainly grown and packed in Italy. Unlike chopped tomatoes or tomato paste or passata, the cannery can only pack intact tomatoes. These are an industrial variety that are not useful for any other product.

France livestock

Forging urban food chains

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France in the closing years of the 18th century was in total chaos. The Terreur (terror) reached its height with the execution of the Jacobin leader Maximilien Robespierre in the summer of 1794. In the years that followed, the Consulate took control led by Napoleon Bonaparte. The young Napoleon set himself the task of clearing away all the old laws and the rag-bag collections of local regulations (“coutumes”).  He replaced them with the “Code Civile” that set out the rules for a constitutional reset.

The code was secular and written in ordinary French. It detailed what was expected of citizens — considering men to be equal before the law, while assigning women the role of dowry-bearers, facilitating the transfer of property and assets between families. Because of the contractual importance of marriage, there were elaborate requirements to ensure that men were legitimate before they could be married. The husband owned his wife’s dowry, but not her paraphenalia.

The code also laid out commercial frameworks and set standards for product liability. For instance, artisans and craftsmen were required to give a ten-year guarantee on their work. When selling land, sellers were obliged to include the oxen teams and equipment needed to work the land. And those acquiring livestock with a farm were required to keep the animals exclusively on that farm, keeping the dung on the holding. It is worth remembering that rural France was heavily  populated in those days, but over the coming century, this was about to change. The Code applied to both town and country, as well as to those on their travels. For example, innkeepers had a legally enforceable duty of care for their guests’ goods and chattels, which extended to those working on the premises, protecting them, too, from light-fingered interlopers.

The March 1804 version of the Code Civile had more than 1800 paragraphs and was the largest version to be put up for adoption. There were prolonged debates about all three circulated versions, each with different numbering and paragraph counts. Some of the articles in the Code Civile still apply to this day, often heavily modified. The administrative commitment to a document-based system put a greater priority on literacy. Deaf or visually challenged citizens who could read had protected access to the provisions of the code unlike non-readers who made their mark to sign off  documents they could not read.

olives

Growing demand

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Source: Intrastat

Total imports of Spanish olive oil to the UK topped 92,000 tonnes in 2021. That includes retail products, industrial, pharmaceutical, food manufacturing and UK-bottled own label product. The only tonnage it leaves out is olive oil sold by Lidl and Aldi. That represents a lot of demand for physical stock. Over the past decade it has climbed from 70,000 tonnes, with a wobble caused by high fuel prices in 2018.

olives

Olive oil by numbers

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The UK has been a strong market for olive oil in recent years, in a world where consumers are spending more than 14 and a half billion pounds a year on the Mediterranean’s most important crop. UK consumers will be paying rather more than their European neighbours in the coming months. They already pay over the odds, as it is.

The UK market caters for small introductory purchases: 250ml bottles currently retail for GBP 2.45p for olive oil, GBP 2.55p for EV (Sainsbury on June 1), while a Tesco 250ml bottle of bland mild and light olive oil has risen by 18% over the past year to GBP 2.83p. Tesco pricing for a litre of leading brand EV has risen steadily over the past 18 months by 50% from GBP 6.95p to GBP 10.40p, while ASDA increased the shelf edge price for the same branded litre of EV from GBP 6.50p to GBP 8 on June 1.

As of June 1, the ASDA shelfedge price for a one litre bottle of Filipo Berio EV went up to GBP 8, while Tesco was asking GBP 10.40 for the same product. It is safe to suppose that ASDA was not selling this line at a loss. So “every little helps” Tesco is charging 30% more than its rival. The day before, the differential was 60% for the same stock on the same shelves in their respective stores.

At a nearby town centre branch of Iceland during the same store check, the olive oil category was a one liner in every sense of the phrase. It comprised a single SKU, 500ml of ordinary olive oil for £4 in a tertiary brand, packed in a tidy plastic bottle. A no-frills distress purchase.

UK grocers selling olive oil have been milking the category. Spanish consumers get through a per capita average of 10 litres a year. They know what it’s worth and expect to get value for money. At the moment, headline olive oil prices are rising and are close to EUR 5,500 a tonne for EV grades. UK retailers will have to rethink their margin expectations if they are going to secure product and continue selling it. The party’s over, guys.

Brexit's legacy key concept olives

Rules Of Origin (ROO)

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Goods that combine components from more than one trading bloc are subject to the Rules Of Origin procedure. Goods made in the EU are zero-rated on arrival in the UK, while the status of duty payable on third country components or ingredients used in EU goods is determined by applying Rules Of Origin. These establish whether or not the third country component has been transformed sufficiently for it to be considered an integral part of a new product. If it is a fellow traveller in a blended product, for instance, it is liable for duty.

The first target is to ascertain whether or not the component concerned has been absorbed into the finished EU product. If so, it can usually be covered by the duty payable on the finished product. If, on the other hand, it can be recovered from or identified within the EU product, the third country component may be liable for third country duty pro rata. The key marker is whether or not the third country component qualifies for a change of customs code. This will be decided by the UK customs staff on a case by case basis.

In the case of third country extra virgin olive oil (1509 2000), it is considered a fellow traveller in a blended product. This currently stands at 104 gbp per 100kg, according to the UK government online tariff service, https://www.trade-tariff.service.gov.uk/subheadings/1509200000-80 (as of check made on May 29).

olives

Olive oil stocks under pressure

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Spain, the world’s largest producer of olive oil, faces the prospect of running out of extra virgin olive oil in the coming months. According to industry figures seen by Urban Food Chains, forecasts for worldwide consumption of olive oil are expected to drop from 3.1 million tonnes to 2.9 million tonnes in the current campaign. There is a potential shortfall of 745,000 tonnes worldwide.

The Spanish industry invested heavily in extensive tree plantings around the turn of the century, with enough trees and crushing capacity to produce one and a half million tonnes of olive oil in a season. But the 2022-3 crop was a poor crop and down by over 50 percent against the previous campaign. This year a lot of flowers set on the trees, but like last year, the trees are stressed and are shedding the fruit.

With total olive oil stocks  across the Spanish industry hovering at just over 607,000 tonnes, the sector faces empty tanks later this year. Domestic consumer demand is strong and April sales in Spain topped 63,000 tonnes. With at least six months to go before the next harvest comes onstream, Spanish consumers will be competing with exporters for physical stocks of olive oil.

Demand is strong and prices are high but expected to go up even further. Assuming that Spanish consumers ease up on their purchases of olive oil, which is not a given, a 5% drop in month on month sales volumes would represent a requirement of just over 277,000 tonnes between now and the next crop. The Spanish industry delivers shiploads of olive oil around the world and all over Europe by tanker truck. Exports as of around 50,000 tonnes a month would empty the country’s remaining stocks by November.

data source: International Olive Oil Coouncil

Like any other crop-driven commodity, there is a numbers game in play and prices will rise steeply to head off strong demand. Retail margins will come under pressure as physical product becomes harder to obtain. The EU has trade deals with north African producers, who can ship quota  tonnages that member states can draw down with zero duty. Should any of this third country olive oil be packed for the UK market, even in a blended product, Rules Of Origin (ROO) would apply on arrival at the UK frontier, where duty would be charged on the non-EU content.

But the underlying concern has to be the drying out of water tables across a huge swathe of southern Europe and the Mediterranean basin. Olive trees have deep roots, but not deep enough, it might seem. In Spain, the planting of thousands of trees has propped up crop yields most years, but not all. This year’s forecast being a case in point.

Background notes about olive oil.

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