The Gemlik olive: why is it the famous table variety?

Say "olive" in Türkiye and most people picture one variety: Gemlik. The small, fleshy black olive with a small stone on the breakfast table is almost certainly it.

So is Gemlik the country's most widely grown variety? There is no single answer — and the reason is interesting.

⚠ Two sources, two different tables

Two academic reviews of variety shares in Türkiye give sharply different figures for the same measure (total olive tree stock):

The gap for Gemlik is 4.4-fold. Both sources are peer-reviewed, and we cannot say from here which is right. The most plausible explanation is that Gemlik's planted area grew very fast in the intervening years. The older review draws on sources from 1991-2009; the newer one uses 2014-15 data. If subsidised new plantings were predominantly Gemlik, that alone could produce the gap. The contradiction may not be an error but the trace of a transformation.

Whichever table you take, one thing does not change: Gemlik has no rival among table olives. In the older table both varieties ahead of it are oil varieties; in the newer one it is first outright.

The older review's full list

The list makes Gemlik's position clear: both varieties above it are oil varieties. Among table olives Gemlik is first, and Domat in second place holds an eighth of its share.

In the Marmara region the ratio is sharper still: 80% of the region's production is Gemlik.

Why a table olive?

What makes Gemlik a table variety is no accident — it is the ripening calendar. The Ministry's variety table shows it plainly:

For comparison: Ayvalık reaches green maturity 15-30 October, Domat and Çakır in "the second half of October". Gemlik gets there at the end of August — roughly two months earlier.

That early ripening delivers two things:

1. A long table-olive window. From late August to mid-November the same tree can give both green and black table olives.

2. Black maturity completes in the first half of November — so the table harvest finishes before the rush of the oil varieties.

The same early ripening also brings a problem: the olive fruit fly strikes at the end of June when fruit becomes suitable for egg-laying, and the technical instruction names names — in humid, temperate regions damage begins with the brining varieties Gemlik and Manzanilla. Large fruit that ripens early is exactly the fruit the fly prefers.

And table olives allow no tolerance: the sting threshold is 1% for brining varieties against 3-4% for oil.

Where it grows

Gemlik takes its name from the district of Gemlik in Bursa, but today it is grown far more widely:

• Marmara: the region's principal variety, alongside Karamürsel Su, Domat and Samanlı
• Aegean: alongside Erkence, Tavşanyüreği and Manzanillo
• Western Mediterranean: alongside Tavşanyüreği, Kan Çelebi, Büyük Topak Ulak and Uslu
• Eastern Mediterranean: alongside Sarı Ulak, Büyük Topak Ulak, Halhalı and Ayvalık

Gemlik is thus one of the few varieties grown across four regions at once. That spread is why its name is used almost as a species rather than a cultivar.

95% of Türkiye's olive trees and 97% of its production lie in the Aegean, Mediterranean and Marmara regions.

Geographical indication

"Gemlik Zeytini" is a registered geographical indication. Registration ties the name to a defined production area and method — not every "Gemlik type" product on a shelf has anything to do with the registration.

The distinction matters: Gemlik as a variety name grows across four regions of Türkiye, while Gemlik Zeytini as a geographical indication describes one locality. We covered what a geographical indication actually does separately.

What has the price done?

The figures in this section are our own: registration records for "black brining olives" at TOBB commodity exchanges — in practice, largely Gemlik-type table olives.

Source: registration records at the Aydın and Edremit commodity exchanges, our own compilation. The 2026 figure is mid-year and rests on few records.

From 8.21 to 164.31 TL in seven years — twenty-fold. How much of that is inflation and how much a real increase we calculated separately in our real price article.

Note also the spread within each year: 11 to 135 TL in 2023, 34 to 200 TL in 2025. In table olives the variety is not the only thing setting the price — size is — as we showed in the economics of caliber.

Summary

• Gemlik's share of the tree stock is given as anywhere from 11% to 48.71% depending on the source; the gap most likely reflects rapid new planting. What does not change: unrivalled among table olives.
• 80% of Marmara's production is Gemlik.
• Green maturity 20 August - 10 September: about two months earlier than other varieties.
• Black maturity 1-15 November — the table harvest ends before the oil rush.
• The price of earliness: the fruit fly comes to Gemlik first, and the table sting threshold is only 1%.
• Grown across four regions: Marmara, Aegean, Western and Eastern Mediterranean.
• "Gemlik Zeytini" is a registered geographical indication; "Gemlik type" is not the same thing.
• Exchange price 8.21 TL/kg in 2019, 164.31 TL/kg in 2026.

Sources

t; Republic of Türkiye, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, TAGEM, Department of Plant Health Research. Olive Integrated Pest Management Technical Instruction. Ankara, 2022. — Phenological stages of the varieties (Table 10)

t; Review of the characteristics of olive varieties grown in Türkiye (Özkaya et al. 2004, 2009; Canözer 1991; Efe et al. 2011, 2012). — Older variety shares and regional distribution

t; Sevim, D., Varol, N. and Köseoğlu, O. (2022). The Effects of Global Climate Change on Olive Growing and Olive Oil. Journal of the Agricultural Faculty of Bursa Uludağ University, 36(2): 415-432 — 2014-15 variety shares from Özaltaş et al. (2016)

Price data: registration records at TOBB commodity exchanges, our own compilation.

Related reading: Olive varieties · Table olive varieties · The economics of caliber · Olive fruit fly control