Orhangazi's crop is doubling: the oil olive share climbs from 10% to 40%

In Türkiye's table olive heartland, the new season stands out not only for how much fruit is on the trees but for where that fruit will end up. In the Orhangazi district of Bursa, figures from the Orhangazi District Directorate of Agriculture and Forestry indicate that a crop of roughly 35,000 tonnes last season could double this year. The second number is the more striking one, because it is a ratio rather than a volume: last season only 10 percent of total output was pressed for oil, and this season that share is expected to rise to 40 percent.

Orhangazi is the main production basin of the Gemlik olive. Gemlik is a table variety carrying both a Turkish geographical indication and European Union registration, and the district's whole olive economy is built around table fruit. That is why a fourfold jump in the oil share says more than a routine crop report.

The figures

The figures come from the Orhangazi District Directorate of Agriculture and Forestry. The 70,000-tonne number is what the stated "double" expectation implies when applied to last season's crop, not a separately published estimate.

An "on" year does not deliver large fruit

An olive tree loads one year and rests the next, a pattern known as alternate bearing. Orhangazi is in an "on" year this season. But that abundance carries a cost: the tree divides the same nutrients and water among far more fruit, so the individual olives stay small.

For table olives this is not a cosmetic matter, it is an income matter. Price per kilogram is largely set by fruit size, or calibre. Fruit that fails to reach the required calibre cannot enter the table grades, and the only remaining outlet is the oil mill. That is the mechanism behind the jump from 10 to 40 percent: what the district faces is not simply more olives, but more olives that will not qualify as table fruit.

Growers across South Marmara have also noted that fruit has stayed smaller than in previous years. The shift toward oil is therefore not a marketing choice peculiar to one district; it is the regional signature of an "on" year.

Mills are in maintenance

Unwilling to be caught unprepared by the volume heading their way, olive oil mills in Orhangazi have accelerated maintenance and preparation work. This is the most tangible sign of the change in the split: table fruit goes to brining facilities, while oil fruit demands milling capacity.

Capacity matters here for a specific reason. Once olives leave the branch they heat up in the heap, fermentation begins and the free acidity of the resulting oil rises. In a season when the crop doubles, the queue that forms outside the mill is written directly into oil quality. As we set out in what to check when having olives pressed at a mill, the interval between harvest and pressing is the single most important quality variable still in the grower's hands.

Why Gemlik can go both ways

Gemlik is registered as a table variety, but it is not an olive with a low oil content. That is the technical reason for the district's flexibility: when fruit fails to reach calibre, it is not left on the grower's hands, it goes to the mill.

Table and oil olives are not harvested at the same ripeness, however. Table fruit is picked while it is firm and has not yet turned colour; oil fruit is left until colour change and oil accumulation are complete. If the decision to shift toward oil is taken at the start of the season, the harvest calendar can be built around it. If it comes late, fruit picked early by table standards but rejected from the grades reaches the mill with a low oil yield, and the grower loses twice: on the table price and on the oil return. We covered ripeness timing in when to harvest olives and the maturity index and the cost-value balance of early picking in is early harvest expensive or valuable.

An "on" year has a further effect on the table side: under a heavy fruit load the olives do not merely shrink, they also become less uniform. As the calibre spread from a single tree widens, the sorting burden at the brining plant grows. We examined the factors that determine table olive quality in quality problems in table olives.

The grower's arithmetic

Shifting fruit to oil raises volume without raising income in the same proportion. The price gap between table and oil olives has worked against growers for years; we examined how the same raw material sells at very different prices depending on processing and marketing in the same olive, six times the price and seven years of the table olive gap.

A second factor is tightening the picture this season: cost. As harvest opens in South Marmara, growers report production costs reaching around 60 lira per kilogram while the price for oil olives is expected to settle in a band of 35 to 40 lira. These figures come from individual farm accounts rather than an official cost study, so they should be read as indicative. Even so, they show that every kilogram diverted to oil narrows the grower's margin. The background is in our piece on costs and carry-over stock before the harvest.

Why it matters beyond Orhangazi

What is happening in Orhangazi is a small-scale version of a national pattern. Table olives are the backbone of Turkish olive exports, a structure we examined in two-thirds of our exports are table olives. When fruit in the table olive heartlands is diverted to oil, the volume of large-calibre fruit available for export can tighten.

Another calendar is running in the same basin today: Marmarabirlik opened crop declarations on 21 September, and members who do not declare cannot deliver their fruit. In an "on" year that declaration is not a formality but the basis of the cooperative's purchasing plan.

The official number is still on its way. Türkiye's 2026 crop survey is under way in 41 provinces, and until the provincial commissions finish their fieldwork every figure in circulation remains an expectation. For why trading volumes reported in the market are not a substitute for a crop estimate, see exchange volume is not the harvest. How the season opened nationally is covered in the 2026/27 olive season opens.