The treasures of Hispania • Chapter summary

This chapter centers around the most well-known products of the nation at an international level, including wine and olive oil. The variety of the country’s landscape, ranging from the rainy north to the sun-filled south, makes it a ripe breeding ground for a wide variety of agricultural produce. Wine, for example, is produced in virtually every region of the country and currently there are 69 Designations of Origins, also known as regions of wine, with over 400 varieties of grapes.

Fruit and vegetables make up another significant part of the sector, with Spain being the number-one producer in the EU, accounting for more than 40% of the bloc’s produce, and the fifth-largest producer of fruits and vegetable worldwide.

Our interviewees in this sector detailed the trend of changing business models so as to globalize production sites and ensure that all fruit and vegetables can be made available at high quality all-year round. Bollo International, for example, is now producing in Spain, Brazil, and Senegal.

Aside from this trend in fruit and vegetable produce, and despite Spain being well known as a producer, its export levels are lower than its competition, namely Italy. As a result of the hard-hitting 2008 crisis, coupled with falling domestic demand, the sector’s focus in recent years has been on increasing these figures. Between 2008 and 2016, the sector experienced continuous growth, expanding by 60%.

According to Acesur, one of Spain’s largest olive oil producers, the volume of Spanish olive oil in the world today has multiplied by 10 compared to 25 years ago. Aside from the private sector, various organizations’ lifeblood is the internationalization of the industry. Tomás Pascual Gómez-Cuétara, President of the Spanish Federation of Food and Drink Industry (FIAB), believes this was set to continue growing. In 2018, sales in the international market exceeded EUR30 billion. As the entity focuses on helping companies in the sector increase exports, FIAB has defined a series of priority markets with great business opportunity, namely the US, China and Hong Kong, Japan, the UK, and Canada.

As scientific research continues to back the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet—in 2019 it was named the best diet in the world—the industry will only momentum, with technology, as well as sustainability, helping to perpetuate these trends further. As innovation continues to play a more important role in the sector, resulting in something of a renaissance, future growth in the sector is promising. ✖