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Manzanilla olive: Spain's table variety

The world's most widely planted green table variety and the international standard for stuffed olives. It is grown in Türkiye too.

26 August 2026 Zeytin.NET editorial desk Olive 3 min read 62 views

The green, pitted olive stuffed with pepper in a jar is the same variety everywhere in the world: Manzanilla. The name is Spanish for "little apple", after its round shape.

Why did it become the table standard?

Manzanilla's advantage lies not in one trait but in a combination:

The fruit is large enough and evenly round — ideal for pitting machinery.
The flesh is firm and the skin tough, so it survives processing and transport.
It responds well to lye processing; the bitterness clears cleanly.
The flesh-to-stone ratio is high.

The result is the international standard for stuffed olives. In Türkiye the same role is filled by Domat.

It grows in Türkiye too

Manzanilla is among the foreign varieties most widely grown in Türkiye, and it has been measured academically. In Çukurova University's trial, its chilling requirement was:

Manzanilla — values measured in Türkiye
Fruit weight	3.90 g
Fruit length	23.40 mm
Fruit width	17.06 mm
Fruit shape index	1.37 (oval)
Flesh weight	3.30 g
Flesh ratio	85%
Pit weight	0.60 g
Flesh-to-pit ratio	5.50
Chilling requirement	319 CU (520 hours)

Source: Gündeşli and Küden (2020), Çukurova University olive germplasm orchard. On chilling, Manzanilla sits near the top of the trial — only Domat (333 CU) and Karamürsel Su (319 CU) matched or exceeded it — meaning it needs a colder winter. On what chilling is and why it determines where a variety can grow: chilling requirement in olives.

Genetic proximity

A genetic study carried out in Türkiye found Manzanilla shares more than 60% similarity with Domat, Gemlik, Kilis Yağlık and Nizip Yağlık. The "foreign" variety turns out to sit genetically close to Türkiye's main variety pool.

It is a reminder that the olive spread from a single gene pool across the Mediterranean basin — the borders were drawn later.

The table advantage, in numbers

Manzanilla being the "table standard" is not a matter of taste; it is the size of its pit. Set beside the Turkish varieties measured in the same trial, the difference becomes visible:

Flesh ratio compared (same orchard, same season)
Variety	Fruit (g)	Pit (g)	Flesh ratio
Manzanilla	3.90	0.60	85%
Gemlik	4.13	0.90	78%
Ayvalık	3.77	0.83	78%
Domat	7.96	1.36	83%

Source: Gündeşli and Küden (2020). Manzanilla carries less pit in a smaller fruit than Gemlik: 0.60 g against 0.90 g. In a pitted, stuffed olive what is sold is flesh — which is why the stuffing line was built on this variety.

Domat's flesh ratio is high too (83%), but its fruit is twice the size; the two compete in different calibre classes.

Where it stands among measured varieties

Flesh ratio 85% 46 measured · rank 25.

Zoncuk avg 83,8% Mavi

çeşit sayfası

Oil content 15-26% 39 measured · rank 27.

Tavsanyuregi avg 22,6% Kalem Bezi

Vossen, UC Cooperative Extension — IOC World Catalogue (Barranco vd.)

Fruit length 23.40 mm 37 measured · rank 19.

Arbequina avg 23,6 mm Karamursel Su

çeşit sayfası

Fruit width 17.06 mm 37 measured · rank 20.

Arbequina avg 17,4 mm Celebi

çeşit sayfası

Fruit weight 3.90 g 29 measured · rank 18.

Koroneiki avg 4,2 g Karamursel Su

çeşit sayfası

Values are those published on each variety's own page; the comparison covers only varieties with a measured figure, so it is a comparison of what is known — not of every Turkish variety. See the full ranking and how it is built →

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