You can find ‘Italian’ oil on every supermarket shelf in the United States where consumers think it’s the gold standard and imagine Italians toiling in the groves and picking a product that says “Made in Italy” – but is really from Greece.
Greek olive oil producers for generations have been selling their green gold commodity to Italy in bulk instead of trying to brand it and export it, losing market share globally and ceding it to Spain and Italy, the top two producers by tonnage.
Only 30 percent of olive oil bottled in Italy is exclusively of Italian origin, said the site Aceite del Campo, and most of what’s produced in Italy is sold in Italy, with the exports being a blend of Italian and Greek – and Spain does it too.
“The long-standing practice of Italian bottlers sourcing Greek olive oil and blending it has resulted in a form of blended olive oil. This blend is registered in the global consumer consciousness as a ‘Made in Italy product’, the site said.
This has to be as grating to Italians as when noted chef Gordon Ramsay shocked celebrity chef Gino D’Acampo by saying that “honestly, I think Greek cuisine is better than Italian cuisine.”
It is, and so is Greek olive oil, especially the prized Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) – you shouldn’t use anything else – it’s the nucleus of the Mediterranean Diet and a key to long life, like the Tin Man getting his joints oiled in the Wizard of Oz.
In 2022, Sakellaropoulos Organic Farms achieved first place globally as a producer of gourmet olive oils, and their flavored oils ranked highly. In 2024, it was rated the best in Greece and 12th best olive oil company in the world.
Greek olive oils constantly win or rank among the world’s finest while Italy is a major exporter of olive oil to the U.S. but much of what it sells is mixed with Greek and Spanish olive oil so it should say “Bottled in Italy.”
Greece loses more than just prestige and it’s painful to seek Greek producers giving away their name in bulk sales – and it costs Greece in revenues too, up to some $350 million a year in potential added value, said To Vima.
Greece has more than 123 million olive oil trees – remarkable given how many have burned in fires in recent years – and they produce 250,000 tons a year of olive oil, with EVOO the most prized and making up 82 percent of it.
But the makers don’t market it, a short-sighted strategy that’s like Ferrari selling car parts to Greece and seeing them used to build a car that has a Greek name. This is the same kind of thinking that saw Greece’s feta and yogurt makers lose a big share of the world market to inferior ‘Greek-style’ products like Chobani.
A walk through a major supermarket in the U.S. will see olive oil coming from Italy, Spain, Tunisia, Morocco, and Portugal but you won’t find any of Greece’s best selling olive oils even on the lower shelves there.
The Olive Oil Times world rankings for 2025 ranked Greece’s The Master Miller, the evolution of the Papadopoulos Olive Oil legacy, as the world’s second best – but just try to find it in a Greek market too.
Spain is easily the world’s biggest producer, with an estimated 1.41 million tons for 2024-25, a 66 percent increase, and it has nearly half the world’s share in the market and has 320 million olive trees.
Greece has only an 8 percent share and only 30 percent is bottled domestically, compared to 70 percent in Spain and nearly 100 percent in Italy, the report said.
Almost half of Greece’s olive oil is exported, but only 5 percent of it is sold abroad under Greek labels. Most ends up in Italy, which alone absorbs about 75 percent of Greek exports that are blended, bottled, and shipped worldwide as a premium Italian product, at a price 25 percent higher than what Greece receives.
This lack of branding explains why Greek exports sell for significantly less compared to Spanish and Italian oils, despite their quality often being equal or superior, the report said, another case of Greece failing to market its products.
The bulk sale practice also sees Greek producers failing to capture even the European market, incredibly even behind Germany and Belgium – which doesn’t have olive groves – but manages to make and sell it. How?
“Our olive oil is crafted from olives grown in Greece, precisely within the vicinity of Ancient Olympia,” founder and owner Tom Suring told Olive Oil Times. “Here, the art of olive oil production thrives through a process characterized by meticulous attention to detail.” Leave the chocolate making to Belgium and the olive oil to Greece, please.
Greece needs a national strategy from the state and the producers to gain the world’s attention and the share it’s due instead of giving it away it’s because there’s a lot at stake.
The market, valued at $15.6 billion in 2025, is projected to grow to nearly $20 billion by 2032, and Spain, Italy, and Greece account for more than 70 percent of world production but Greece gets almost zero percent of the credit for its best commodity.
