Building resilience into the olive oil industry

July 1, 2024

A changing climate is transforming olive oil production in the Mediterranean and shifting the economics of the industry. To stay profitable, producers will have to adjust their processes and extract more value out of their crop. GEA innovation is helping them make the transition.

It’s no wonder that our love of olive oil has its roots in the Mediterranean. For millennia, the climate there has provided the perfect conditions for growing and harvesting olives. Still today, the region is home to 85% of the world’s olive oil production.

But conditions are changing. The Mediterranean’s more gentle, subtropical climate has given way to punishing heat, irregular rainfall patterns, and more frequent extreme weather events. For thousands of years, olive trees could count on a critical, brief period of “sleep” during the winter, but recent winters have not been cold enough. Higher temperatures have changed the soil and its capacity to hold water. Excessive heat during harvesting means that olives are oxidizing and fermenting before they even get to the mill. As a result, alcohol levels are too high, free fatty acids are too high, and the beneficial polyphenols are being destroyed. Additionally, oil contents are lower than before, while larger numbers of moth larvae are increasing the protein content in the fruit and making oil extraction harder. And the list goes on.

Sure enough, both the yield and quality of olive oil has suffered. Olive oil production in the EU for 2022/2023, as reported by the European Commissions, was down 40% compared to the previous season. According to Germany’s leading consumer product testing organization Stiftung Warentest, olive oil quality is down significantly over the last two years. "For the first time, we have the impression that the climate crisis is being reflected in a food test," said food chemist Jochen Wettach, who led the recent Stiftung Warentest review of 23 popular olive oils called “The taste of climate change” published in March 2024. With demand for high-quality oil on the rise, poor olive harvests mean this “liquid gold” is becoming ever scarcer and pricier. While prices for other cooking oils were down year-on-year as of February 2024, prices for olive oil were up more than 50% on average according to another analysis carried out by Stiftung Warentest. This new environment is forcing producers to not only adapt their processes and level up their technologies – but to rethink their very business model. 

New conditions, new solutions for more sustainable olive oil processing

With more than 70 years of experience in olive oil processing, GEA has paved the way for more efficient, sustainable production over the years – and helped the industry rethink when necessary. In the early 1990s, GEA revolutionized the conventional 3-phase separation process by introducing the 2-phase decanter – now the modern industry standard – which improved processing efficiency, generated less wastewater and drastically reduced water consumption overall. Today, the majority of the world's largest mills use GEA equipment to produce olive oil – and GEA is finding ways to help tackle old and new challenges within the industry. 

Steffen Hruschka, PhD in Food Process Engineering, is one of GEA’s experts in olive oil processing. He helped introduce and further develop the 2-phase- and alternative decanter processes. “Throughout history, guaranteeing oil quality meant making sure olives were not overripe at the time of harvesting and milling. Today, olives are ripening much faster and must be harvested earlier – at temperatures around 30 degrees Celsius instead of 10-17C as in the past. Under these conditions, maintaining quality becomes very difficult.” Here, GEA helps producers offset this challenge with equipment that gently handles the olives during harvesting; this minimizes oxidation and extends olive freshness. “Today we’re looking at ways to influence the process parameters on automated lines so producers can recover the same amount and quality of oil as before, even under these difficult conditions. Appropriate cooling systems are another aspect of effective production,” explains Hruschka.

At the same time, GEA is developing solutions to help producers extract more value from their harvest across the entire value chain. “In the past, the oil was considered the only source of value. Today, producers face a much different future, especially in the Mediterranean region – one where the oil alone will not be enough to sustain them economically,” says Hruschka. 

Toward a circular olive economy

Hruschka, who has developed nearly 40 GEA patents, covering olive oil processing, protein recovery and machine design, was instrumental in developing a new processing method to recover additional value from the so-called “wet pomace” – the waste product from 2-phase olive oil production. Wet pomace represents about 80% of the total weight of an olive harvest. As in many other industries, this high-volume byproduct was traditionally considered waste. Not anymore. “There are two very compelling reasons to treat this waste stream differently,” says Hruschka. “First, disposal of wet pomace has become more challenging due to its environmental impact. By reprocessing and reusing it, we solve that problem. And second, the pomace contains oil, water and organic materials, which have economic value.” 

The additional oil extracted from the pomace – while no longer extra-virgin quality – can be used in a range of culinary and industrial applications. “Our solution generates more residual oil and with better quality, which also works for older pomace,” explains Hruschka. The recovered water from fresh pomace is rich in sugar, and unoxidized polyphenols, which can be used in the chemical, cosmetics, food and feed industries. The remaining pomace – the solid residue – contains sugar, protein, starch and cellulose. This can be used in bioenergy applications, in animal feed or blended with other organic material to make humus for enriching soil. “These are all byproducts producers can monetize; and the prospect of being able to improve the soil is particularly valuable in the context of climate change,” says Hruschka. “The heat, drought conditions and wind have severely degraded the soil. If we don’t solve this problem, there will be no olive oil industry in the future.” GEA is currently working with universities and other partners to investigate and promote the use of solid pomace waste as fertilizer to boost soil health and productivity in the Mediterranean region. 

Supporting and organizing the paradigm shift

One of these partners is arteFakt, a German-based cooperative with roughly 1,000 members throughout the EU. Its mission is to develop partnerships with olive oil producers in Italy, Greece and Spain to produce and market supreme quality extra virgin olive oils. Secondly, it seeks to educate producers, including those with small and midsized operations, about producing more sustainably and economically. The cooperative also reaches out to consumers to broaden awareness about olive oil quality and the importance of supporting local producers. 

Conrad Bölicke, founder of arteFakt, knows just how serious the situation is for European farmers. He keeps a close eye on the olive oil groves of his local members. "We have observed a drastic deterioration in the situation for years," he says. "The entire agricultural system in the Mediterranean needs to adapt urgently. We are facilitating and supporting the paradigm shift," says Bölicke. However, the changes required cannot be achieved alone, which is why strong partners are required – especially from the mechanical engineering sector. "In 15 to 20 years, a European olive oil producer will no longer be able to make a living from his oil alone," Bölicke says. "This would effectively mean the end of European olive oil, which of course we want to prevent. 

Together with GEA and the Eurofins Analytik laboratory in Hamburg, arteFakt is working on a “zero waste” pilot to extract value from 100% of the olive. This concept can then be shared with and used by producers throughout southern Europe. A Spanish producer has already integrated a GEA decanter to valorize olive oil side streams, drastically reducing their processing waste while generating extra income through further processing pits, olive water and pomace. And more want to follow.

A way forward and a future for olive oil producers

“The very real negative impact of climate change over the last several years has created a sense of urgency in the industry, but there is also an opportunity here,” says Hruschka, who points to the sheer volume of byproducts that can now be put to good use. He estimates that half of the olive harvest by weight can be turned into organic material for use as humus. “If we assume a harvest of 7 million metric tons of olives in Spain, for example, that is 3.5 million tons of usable material per year – in Spain alone – that can be used to enrich the soil and ensure future harvests,” he says. “Producers can use this to not only boost the sustainability and productivity of their own operations, but they can also sell it to other producers.”

There is clearly a lot of additional potential in the little olive, and the worldwide industry has the ability to tap it with the right solutions and mindset.