Good season for Malta’s olive oil, but still not a record year, says Gozo producer

This year’s olive oil production in Malta is shaping up to be a strong one, although not a record-breaker, according to a Gozo-based producer.

Speaking to BusinessNow.mt in early October, he says that olive production “depends a lot on how much a person takes care of their trees, not just how many trees you have and you just pick the olives.”

For him, good olive oil starts long before the fruit reaches the press. “Factors like how is the soil, whether you have irrigation, and how one prunes the tree all affect the production of the tree,” he explains.

This season has proven especially promising in the area around Ramla l-Ħamra Bay, where his groves are based. “Last year in our area it was bad, but not only us, even in the rest of the Mediterranean. This year however is really good, but it’s still not the peak,” he says.

Harvesting and processing methods are equally vital to quality, he stresses. “In order for you to have a good product, you can’t just toss the olives in the machine. You have a lot of factors there too – like in which state the olives were in when it was harvested, how long it took for it to be pressed, if the press was clean or not, if the olives were dirty, if it was cut from a tree near the road, if it was attacked by flies, how many kilometres it was transported for before it was pressed.”

In this regard, Maltese producers have an advantage, he notes: “Luckily for us we don’t have to travel a lot.” The producer also shared that while the yield is “very good” this season, it still does not match the levels reached in previous standout years.

One concern he encountered came from locals whose trees failed to produce olives this year. “There were people this year that called because their tree did not produce olives,” he said, pointing to inconsistent weather conditions and the lack of rainfall in Malta – a familiar challenge for island growers.

Olive pressing is still ongoing, and the olive oil producer says it is too early to provide final figures on total production. “Right now we are still pressing so I can’t give you numbers about how much we produced,” he says.

Nevertheless, early indications offer cautious optimism for 2025’s Maltese olive oil harvest overall.

Watch our additional reporting below.